


Mångata

by NightAuthor



Series: A Dragon Among Dwarves [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Angst and Feels, BAMF Bilbo Baggins, Bard is a Good Dad, Bilbo Has Issues, Dragon Bilbo Baggins, Dwarven Ones | Soulmates, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Exhaustion, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt Bilbo Baggins, Hurt No Comfort, Isolation, Love Confessions, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Parental Dwalin, Pining, Quest of Erebor, Romantic Fluff, Shapeshifter Bilbo Baggins, Starvation, When Will I Let Belda Be Happy?, fem!Bilbo, fem!Fili - Freeform, fem!Nori
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-08-06 06:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 57
Words: 273,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16383203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightAuthor/pseuds/NightAuthor
Summary: Erebor's time has finally come, now that Thorin has gathered together enough loyal Dwarves to make it to the Lonely Mountain alive. Dwalin just wishes they weren't a cursed number.Oh, and that the irritatingly bull-headed Halfling Tharkûn found in the Shire would go home already. The Wilds are no place for a half-starved, girl-child gentleHobbit who can neither fight nor fend for herself.Belda's time to escape has finally come, now that she's managed to convince (read: emotionally blackmail) Gandalf into agreeing to let her come on the quest thingy he seems to be on, as well as convince the annoyingly bull-headed leader of the Dwarven pack to let her join them until Rivendell, at least. She only hopes she can earn their respect.Especially his second-in-command.Oh, and that they won't kill her when they find out the truth. She might not be their Burglar yet, but she regrets lying to them anyway.Other than Thorin. The stupidhead.





	1. Kíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it begins.

Kíli positioned himself carefully to keep Dwalin between him and his Uncle as they walked through the inn; the Green Dragon, so the sign said. Odd name, and one that some of the Company had muttered held nothing but bad tidings for the quest, but the picture on the sign, of the titular drake holding an overflowing mug, its mouth open in either song or preparation to throw back its drink, was so merry-looking that he felt a bit hopeful. It didn’t seem possible that something so cheerful, and an inn so welcoming (once the occupants were deep enough in their cups not to be as wary of them as they had been at the beginning of the night) and a place so peaceful, could mean anything but good fortune for them all.

He snorted quietly at his superstition, but a thundering yell had him crouching a bit behind Dwalin to be sure Thorin couldn’t see him. Thorin wasn’t angry at him, of course, but it had taken over three months of grueling tests and challenges before he would even grudgingly allow Kíli to come along; Kíli had no intention of risking his place in the Quest to reclaim their home because he had the bad luck to catch his Uncle’s attention at the wrong time.

Although, if nothing else, Kíli was glad of the tests for the simple reason that seeing how hard he’d had to work had shut Gimli up. At barely forty-four, he was far too young to join the Company.

Kíli, at fifty-nine, was barely more qualified, but he’d proven himself. He was on shaky ground, but he was a member of the Company, just like Fíli. Thorin reached a new decibel, and Kíli offered an apologetic smile to the trembling barkeep. “YOU HAUL US ALL TO THIS LAND OF INDOLENT FARMERS, AND FOR WHAT?!?”

Impressively loud even for one of the Big Folk, Tharkûn roared back, “FOR SOMETHING YOU DESPERATELY NEED, AND WILL CERTAINLY FAIL WITHOUT!”

Shoving the doors open, Thorin did lower his voice a fraction, but Kíli could still see more than a few Halflings hiding, wide-eyed. “Then we will certainly fail, for you have failed to procure it!”

Tharkûn began to answer the accusation, but Dwalin cut him off, running ahead and divesting Kíli of his cover in the process. “Oi! Steal a single pony and I’ll have your hide!”

Moving to the side with Fíli, they had an excellent view of the supposed thief, or at least of his back: slightly built, as were all of these Halflings, but taller and thinner than most, coming to his shoulder, he would guess, rather than to the middle of his chest, which was the tallest he’d seen until now; longer hair than most, as well, tumbling down below his shoulders in brassy curls; amber-brown skin was visible under the ludicrously short trousers all the men-folk seemed to wear here. Kíli took all this in in an instant, sharpshooter’s eyes flicking from one detail to the next. Then the ‘thief’ turned around.

The sight of a young, coolly intelligent, but undoubtably female face (with a figure that was just visible through the open, too-large jacket to be just as undoubtably female) seemed to chase all coherent thought out of Kíli’s head, and he glanced slowly at Fíli to see the same shock on his sister’s face; Dwalin seemed just as shocked, as he’d stopped dead in the road as soon as she turned. The girl’s words were clear, a low, silvery voice carrying them easily through the open space, but it took a moment for Kíli to process them through his astonishment. “Stealing one of your ponies would seem to be somewhat counterintuitive, seeing as how I’m coming with you.”

At the same moment as Fíli, Kíli let out a shocked exhale; no one spoke to Dwalin like that, not even Thorin. Actually, considering most Halflings quailed at the mere sight of him, that made this girl remarkably brave. Or was she a woman? Her voice was mature enough, and what he could see of her figure was as adult as any of the women he’d seen in the inn, but to look at her face, he wasn’t sure she wasn’t closer to his age than to Ori’s; the lack of beard would’ve erased all doubt if Tharkûn hadn’t already informed them all that virtually no Halflings could grow beards. Dwalin looked just as shocked, but Tharkûn stepped forward before anyone else could, something lost and awed and old in his face. “Belladonna?”

The girl’s face tightened a fraction, but her voice was no less composed. “Belda. And before you tell me that I look exactly like my mother, bear in mind that that doesn’t tend to be meant as a compliment here in Hobbiton.”

Tharkûn shook his head slowly, leaning on his staff a bit more than usual. “I went to Bag-End yesterday morning—”

“To invite Mum on an adventure, I’m aware. I heard you from the study.” At the interruption, Kíli’s jaw dropped further; normally, only Thorin had the nerve to interrupt Tharkûn.

As Kíli expected, Tharkûn’s expression darkened into a scowl, but there still wasn’t half as much irritation in it as there usually was when it was directed toward Thorin. “If you heard me, then why did you not greet me as you should have? And why was that horrible woman in your home? I sincerely doubt even Bungo could have any patience for her.”

The girl’s expression darkened as well, but far more than Tharkûn’s, and now her voice did shake. “In order, I did not greet you because the last time I was foolish enough to let my guardians catch on that I wasn’t being entirely ‘proper’ and ‘Bagginsish’, I was confined to my room for a month. That ‘horrible woman’, to which I could add any number of descriptors, was in Bag-End because she has spent the last eleven years ensuring it is her home, not mine. And you’re right.” Inhaling deeply, eyes shining slightly as she craned her head up to meet Tharkûn’s gaze, her voice was even more unsteady when she continued. “Da would never have tolerated her, and Mum’s probably been rolling in her grave since they received custody of me.”

A shuddering breath escaped Tharkûn, and he rasped, “She— when?” Riveted by the scene as he was, Kíli couldn’t help but be a little fascinated by Tharkûn’s reaction; he’d never seen the wizard show anything but cool composure unless he was arguing with Thorin. But he also had to sympathize with the girl, Belda. He knew what it was to lose a parent.

She stared impassively at the wizard for a long moment, and spoke much more quietly than before. “You should have stayed a bit longer, last time. Then you might not have missed the funeral.”

His eyes fell closed, and an immense, pained sorrow seemed to radiate from him. “The Winter.”

Slowly, Belda nodded. “The Winter. They died less than a fortnight after you left. By spring, I and Bag-End were turned over to Longo and Camellia.”

Somewhat blearily, Tharkûn frowned. “Not to Gerontius? Or even to Mirabella?”

At the first name, the girl’s face had shuttered, and Kíli had a feeling why; at the second, she looked away and down, tilting her face away from Tharkûn and toward Fíli and Kíli. “I… wasn’t well. At first. Longo convicted Grandfather that I needed a steady, calming influence, not like in Tuckborough or Buckland. That ruled out all of Mum’s family, and since Longo and the rest would be taking Bag-End anyway, Grandfather thought it would be easiest for me to stay with them, where I was comfortable.”

Thinking over her earlier words, Kíli murmured, “That didn’t work out, then.” The girl’s eyes jumped to his as soon as he spoke, and he blinked at her, hardly daring to think she’d actually heard him from such a distance. [Uvarovite](https://www.fossilera.com/sp/142135/uvarovite/uvarovite.jpg)-green eyes, stunningly vivid, flicked over him, then over Fíli, and he could only guess that she hadn’t noticed them until then.

Thorin stepped forward a moment later, glowering. “That doesn’t answer the question of why you seem to think you can simply join our Company.”

Belda raised an eyebrow at him. “Gandalf came to Bag-End yesterday for the express purpose of inviting Mum on an adventure. Seeing as how Mum was virtually the only Hobbit remotely qualified for anything of the sort, and given the complaints you so helpfully shouted loud enough for my cousins in Buckland to hear, you really need any Hobbit, not just my mother. And if you need any Hobbit, then that must mean that you need stealth, seeing as how that’s really all we’re better at than anyone else. And given that you’re in dire enough need that you followed Gandalf to… what did you call it? A ‘land of indolent farmers’? Well, I’m not sure how you can really turn down a willing volunteer.”

The sunny day seemed to dim as Tharkûn drew himself up, towering over Belda with more than his six feet, or so it seemed to Kíli. “You are not of age, Belladonna Baggins, and I will not desecrate your father’s memory by putting you in harm’s way.”

Impressively, she stood her ground, and just glared tiredly at the Wizard. “I may not be of age until autumn, but I haven’t been a child for eleven years, Gandalf. Da may not have had a taste for adventure himself, but he always supported Mum’s excursions, and ‘desecrating his memory’ would be leaving me here, with relatives he couldn’t stand, to be boxed in and confined until I am a shadow of myself, and every trace of my mother, of the woman he loved more than life, is erased beyond memory.” Tharkûn shrank slightly, the shadows fleeing as the sun brightened again, but she didn’t soften her glare a jot. “I will not stay in that smial a day longer, Gandalf. If you refuse to allow me to come with you, I’ll just follow you, and you’ll never even glimpse me until it’s too late for you to take me back here.”

Dwalin scoffed. “Do you think us blind, girl? We’ve been learning to hunt and track since before you were born; we’ll catch you in a day.”

Shaking his head, Tharkûn waved off Dwalin’s assertion. “No, unfortunately, she’s right. Hobbits are remarkably light on their feet; they can pass unseen by most, if they so choose, and unheard by all. Belladonna was more adept at the skill than most, and knowing her, she was only too glad to pass on her expertise. No,” he looked solemnly down at the victoriously smirking girl. “If Miss Baggins does follow us, even I will be unable to perceive her, barring anything unfortunate. We would have to keep a constant watch, and to return her to the Shire once she revealed herself, and we don’t have the time to spare.”

Now Thorin scoffed, and Kíli shared a concerned glance with Fíli; he wasn’t sure about the girl by any means, but if she was as skilled as Tharkûn thought she was, then they did need her, and if he was right that she shouldn’t come because she wasn’t quite of age, then neither should Kíli, since he wouldn’t be of age until nearly midsummer. “She would leave a life of careless ease so easily? No. No one would.” The bitter note in Thorin’s voice was obvious to Kíli, but he wasn’t sure that anyone else would hear it, comparatively unfamiliar with his uncle as they were.

Belda’s eyes darkened even further, then abruptly cleared, and she smiled at him, if it could be called that; the expression was as cold as ice, and as lethal as her namesake. “If you think that my life has been one of ‘careless ease’, then I suggest you ask Gandalf how he spent the Fell Winter, or you could ask any of the Hobbits currently eavesdropping on this conversation how my parents died and I was wounded, or, of course, you could ask Camellia how many times she’s barred me in my room or withheld my meals because I was behaving too Tookishly for her tastes.”

Tharkûn inhaled sharply at her mention of the second punishment, and she grinned wolfishly at him.

“In fact, I’m very nearly certain that when she hears about this, not only that I had an extended conversation with the Grey One, but that I asked Dwarves to take me with them, she’ll probably hold half my meals back for six months, at least. She’ll absolutely use it as proof that I’m incapable of making my own decisions and have me disinherited from what’s left of Bag-End. So, Gandalf, you have a decision to make. You can refuse to take me, and consign me to months or years of imprisonment in what should, by all rights, be my own home. You can refuse to take me, and leave me to scavenge what food I can while I follow you. Or, you can support my joining whatever this is and give me, at the very least, a way out of my cage.”

“‘Whatever this is’?” Ori sounded scandalized, which Kíli could understand, but he wasn’t sure he agreed; she obviously hadn’t been told anything of their purpose. “Don’t you know?”

Her eyes hardened as they fixed on something out of Kíli’s field of vision, almost certainly Ori. “No, I don’t, and to be perfectly blunt, I don’t care. I have seen enough trouble and violence to last a lifetime, far too much. And I would rather see another lifetime’s worth, I would rather live through another Fell Winter, I would rather face a bloody dragon, than stay here.”

Kíli huffed out a quiet laugh at the irony in her words at the same moment that Tharkûn did. “Thoroughly unHobbitish.”

In a display of more temper than she’d shown until then, Belda snapped, “Why do you think I want to leave?” As soon as the words were out, she stilled, closing her eyes for a brief moment, then fixed them thoughtfully on Thorin. “Are you going past Rivendell?”

Thorin scowled, but Balin answered her calmly. “Within a few leagues. We don’t intend to visit.”

Nodding, she looked at Thorin again. “A compromise, then. Even on ponies, it’ll take several weeks to get so close to Rivendell. You allow me to accompany you that far, and if I’ve proven to be nothing but a useless child, send me to Rivendell and I’ll find my way from there. No arguments, I won’t follow you, and you’ll never see me again. But if I prove capable, you accept me as a part of your Company.”

For a few moments, Thorin just stared at her, a challenge in his eyes; she held his gaze steadily, and simply waited. At the sound of an ear-piercing screech, both of them, along with Kíli himself, whipped around to try and locate the source. Quietly, Belda spoke, and Kíli turned to her to see that she was wide-eyed and looked more nervous than she had when speaking to Kings and Wizards. “And I think Camellia just realized I’m gone. Whatever you’re going to decide, I’d prefer you did it quickly; a quick getaway will be far easier on horseback. Well, pony-back, but either way, she’s not much of a runner.”

An outraged sputter pulled both his and her eyes to an older Hobbit man, far shorter and stouter than her, with lighter skin. “You will do no such thing, you— you ungrateful waste of a Baggins! Camellia’s been kinder to you than you deserve, you Took! You’ve been a disgrace to the family since the Fell Winter, and I won’t stand for such flagrantly unHobbitish behavior!”

With a geniality that even Kíli could tell was paper-thin, she smiled, sickly-sweet, at the purple-faced Hobbit. “All the more reason for me to leave, Uncle Bingo, so that you can wash your hands of me.”

At her words, the rest of the Hobbits hiding in the woodwork seemed to gain a measure of courage, and Fíli and Kíli had to move closer to the group to avoid being trapped in the crowd; the Hobbits kept out of arms’ reach of her, but the stream of insults and criticisms they loosed was frankly shocking. Now that he was closer, he could see that he’d been right: she was barely tall enough to come to his shoulder, and half a head or more taller than any of the other Hobbits. The result was an odd mix of delicate, petite girl, and willowy giantess, depending on whether he was comparing her to himself or to the Hobbits. But despite the fact that any Dwarf would consider her well within her rights to strike back at them, she ignored the Hobbits with a tired sort of resignation, and only gave Tharkûn a silent, pleading look.

Feeling as though he were being watched, Kíli turned to see that Thorin was staring at him, an unreadable look in his eyes. For several seconds, none of them moved, and the Hobbits’ abuses filled the air. Finally, Thorin growled out a sigh as only he could. “Fine! But only to Rivendell!”

The girl’s face lit up in a beaming grin that made her look even younger, if that were possible, even as the surrounding Hobbits redoubled their vitriol. Another outraged screech silenced them all for an instant, wiping away Belda’s smile, and Tharkûn cleared his throat. “If we don’t wish to be delayed further, I suggest we set out now.”

Most of Kíli’s attention was on Thorin as he rumbled out an agreement, but he didn’t miss the eager, slightly frantic way she nodded. He also didn’t miss the fact that while everyone else was mounting up, she stayed where she was, looking a bit lost. As subtly as he could, he elbowed Fíli and nodded to her; Fíli nodded once at him and stepped a bit closer to her. “Do you know how to ride?”

Rose-pink bloomed over her cheeks, even spreading over her nose and to her ears, (which Kíli had never seen before, and wasn’t sure why the sight called answering warmth to his own cheeks), but she kept her head high as she answered her, though her voice was more unsteady than before. “I’d thought to just keep up on foot for now.”

Another screech, this time close enough to be discernible as the words, ‘where is she’, and Kíli exchanged a panicked glance with Fíli while Belda paled. Nudging him, Fíli tilted her head toward Kíli’s pony, Myrtle, and Kíli nodded as he caught his sister’s meaning. He only hoped that Belda wouldn’t react too badly.

While Kíli mounted his pony, the crowd began to shift as Thorin, Gandalf, and the others at the front of the line edged their mounts forward, but all thought of subtlety flew out the window when a Hobbit boy even younger than Belda flung something toward her; Fíli’s hand snapped out almost too quickly for even Kíli to see, then opened with a wince to reveal a largish rock with sharp enough edges to have drawn blood. As Fíli spun, Kíli heard a rushed “Sorry about this, Miss” under the roar of the mob, and then Belda was sitting in front of him on Myrtle.

Mind momentarily blank due to the unexpectedly natural way she fit against him, he spurred his mount forward, able to go a bit faster than the rest had at first as the crowd had already cleared a path in front of them. Unfortunately, this also meant that he could either try (and fail, he could already tell) to ignore the way the pony’s gait made her rock against him, or he could steady her as best he could with an arm around her waist.

So, with a muttered apology, he went with the (slightly) better option. She stiffened further at the contact (which he could feel too well with the entire length of her against his chest, her curls slotting neatly under his chin and catching every now and then on his scruff), and, thanking Mahal that she couldn’t see the violent shade of red he could feel he’d turned, he just managed to keep his voice level. “We’ll be going a bit more quickly once we’re out of the town, and it might be hard for you to stay on, so—”

“No, fine, it— it’s fine.” Her voice was as unsteady as before, but really, after nearly being killed, he couldn’t hold it against her.

They rode a bit harder than was probably wise, but by midday, they’d reached another obstacle: a river. Bits and snatches of yet another argument between Gandalf and Thorin reached them, and Belda sighed. She’d relaxed against him, gradually, and settled into the rhythm of riding fairly well for someone who hadn’t even known how at first; yet another unfortunate effect of this was that now it was that much easier for Kíli to feel that she was practically skin and bones, compared to Dwarves and the Hobbits he’d seen. Keeping his head over hers, and feeling his chin bump into her scalp when he wasn’t careful, he asked quietly, “Can you hear what they’re arguing about?”

She was silent for a moment, most likely listening, then cleared her throat and answered just as quietly, and just as evenly as a few hours before. “Gandalf is taking us to the Brandywine Bridge as quickly as he can. The scowl-y one thinks we’re going the wrong way.” Momentarily speechless at her nickname for his King, Kíli tightened his grip on her unconsciously as she leaned forward. “Actually, he seems to want to ride over the Water to Budgeford, that way.”

She gave a tiny flick of her fingers north and settled gingerly against him again, some of her earlier stiffness returning. This time, one of her curls somehow found its way into his mouth, and he had to lean back to try and get it out without moving either of his hands; she stiffened further, and when he straightened enough to see, he realized that her hands were gripping the ends of her jacket, white-knuckled.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve tied it back—”

“No, it’s fine.” As soon as the words were out, he realized that he was echoing her, and felt another mortified blush creep up. Fíli, moving up to ride beside him while the road was wide enough, smirked at him, but stayed silent after Kíli glared at her. To be so familiar with any woman was presumptuous, but there really wasn’t any other option. It would be a long, awkward day, and there was nothing for it. Recognizing the look on Fíli’s face, Kíli hurried to speak before his older sister could embarrass him further. “Um, what did you call Uncle, again?”

“Un—” She stiffened again, and he could just see her grip tighten on her jacket as she took a slow breath before answering. “I’m sorry if I caused any offense, but I don’t know his name, so— but that’s my fault, isn’t it.”

The last sentence, emotionless and near-inaudible, sent chills down Kíli’s spine, and he glanced at Fíli as she hurried to speak. “His name’s Thorin Oakenshield, and I’m Fíli, at your service.”

Fíli gave a sort of half-bow from her pony, and Belda giggled softly. Quiet warmth spreading through his chest, Kíli tried to quash the goofy smile he could feel on his face. “And I’m Kíli.”

“Belda Baggins, at your service and your family’s. Although I suppose that goes without saying, if scow— if, um, Thorin is your uncle.”

Biting her lip against a smile, Fíli chuckled. “I suppose it does, a bit. And don’t worry about our being offended; we love Uncle dearly, but he does tend to be somewhat dour.”

Kíli chuckled. “He’s not always like this, of course, but he’s not exactly comfortable here.”

Scoffing, she started to say something, but a Hobbit on the side of the road interrupted her. “Belda?”

He was as tall as her, or nearly, but far better fed, and looked to be a bit older than the Hobbit who’d begun the onslaught that morning. Kíli pulled Myrtle to a halt as she answered, Fíli and most of the Company following suit. “Hello, Uncle Gorbadoc. You haven’t changed a bit.”

Staring up at her, eyes shining, he scoffed lightly. “I wish I could say the same, girlie. What’ve they been feeding you?”

Thorin and Tharkûn finally seemed to notice the holdup, and began to move closer; she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going back.” Expression shuttered, the Hobbit glanced uneasily between the Dwarves, but she shook her head again, raising her voice a fraction. “No, not because of them. Well,” she bobbed her head, nearly clipping Kíli’s chin, “yes, because of them in that they, with Gandalf’s endorsement, furnished my means of escape.”

She nodded to Gandalf as she named him, and he inclined his head to the Hobbit. Looking a tad more at ease, he looked up at her sadly. “You could stay with us.” The fondness in his face swept away any doubt Kíli might have had that the offer wasn’t genuine, but his tone seemed to indicate that he knew she wouldn’t accept it.

There must have been something in her expression that Kíli couldn’t see, as the Hobbit nodded mournfully a moment later. Her voice, when she spoke, was a bit thicker than it had been before, and shaking minutely. “Give my love to Aunt Mirabella, and to Prim. Tell Uncle Isengrim… Tell him he did what he thought was best, and that I never blamed him, or Grandfather.”

He shook his head. “Belda, if we’d known—”

“But you didn’t, and therefore, there was nothing you could’ve done.” She was silent for a moment, then quietly, almost too quietly to hear, finished, “Goodbye, Uncle.” Stepping back from the road, he said something of which Kíli only caught snatches of accented syllables. She simply inclined her head, and Tharkûn nodded sorrowfully, turning to face East again and prompting the rest of the Company to resume their journey.

More than a few of them stared at Belda a bit before they did, some (such as Dwalin) with disdain, some (such as Dori and Ori) sympathetically. He didn’t know what they were seeing, but Fíli was no help, as she just shrugged, wide-eyed, at Kíli. Clearing his throat, he tried, “Anyway, Uncle—”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk just now.” At her voice, Kíli froze; it was even thicker and more shaky than before, and now he could feel her breath hitching softly. He had no idea what to do, and Fíli just shrugged again when he looked to her.

Swallowing nervously, he adjusted his grip on the reins. “All right.”

She didn’t say anything further, even once her breath evened out, but she leaned more heavily against him, and he kept a carefully-gentle hold on her for the rest of the day, not sure why he couldn’t quite banish the heat in his cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is pronounced 'MOO-ahn-GAH-tah', by the way, or at least that's how I would phonetically spell it based on the pronunciations I found on the internet. The first syllable kind of slides into the second, it's not super-super emphasized. Of course, the third syllable isn't even as emphasized as the first, so out of the four, I guess the first one is super-super emphasized, but still. Oh, and I'll add tags as I go; I don't have the energy right now.  
> Anyone who has suggestions to improve the summary, please do share; I'm terrible at them.  
> This is kind of a weak start, compared to the rest of the story, but I've got to start somewhere, and I haven't even written the end yet, so I'm not doing a flash-forward, and doing a flash-back would spoil future stuff, so... oh well.  
> Which leads me to my next point: normally, I write a story, finish it, and THEN start posting, since I hate seeing unfinished stuff around (I still have a ton of unfinished stuff around, but only in the cloud), but long story short, I'm shipping out for Basic Military Training at the beginning of January and I really want to have this story up before then, so I'm going to be trying to finish it as I post. I barely edit anyway, so it's not a huge-huge deal, but I'm used to not even needing a buffer. Now I only have a few weeks of one. When the mood hits me I can write like 20k in a week, so here's praying that I can find that and keep it up until the story's done.  
> When I'm not getting into shape for Basic.  
> And finishing a sweater I'm making.  
> And helping babysit my sister's kids.  
> ...I literally am insane, aren't I?  
> Whatever, I'll do it anyway.  
> Credit to texaspeach, trustmeimjoly, utanga, nimacu, and, of course, mabmon for being awesome betas and helping me with this. You guys are the best!  
> Next update is tomorrow night, and every night this week. Still deciding if I'm going to be posting every day, or every other day, or four days a week, or six days a week, or who knows what, but I'll let you know when I do.  
> Á demain!


	2. Bofur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exposition! Dwarves! Hobbits! Shape-changers!

Bofur barely held back a laugh as the Hobbit girl crumpled to the ground, a vaguely surprised look on her face. Fíli and Kíli tried to catch her, of course, but they were just a hair too slow, and Bofur heard a contemplative ‘ow’ from where he was unpacking his pony, fifteen paces or so away. The Durins hurried to help her to her feet, pulling her arms around their necks when it was obvious that she wouldn’t be able to stand on her own. After checking that Bifur was alright, Bofur moved over to sit within speaking distance of the odd girl, who the siblings had lowered to sit near Tharkûn and the fire. “First time riding?”

She looked a bit surprised at being addressed, but gave him an almost-smile and a raised eyebrow. “How did you ever tell?”

Bofur and Tharkûn both snorted, amused, at her sarcasm, along with Balin and Nori. As Bombur bustled about getting dinner cooking, the Heirs fussed over her, giving her tips on her posture and such for the next day’s travel, and he watched her thoughtfully. Her eyes were still a bit puffy, but that was the only visible sign of her earlier tears.

He’d been a bit impressed, actually, if worried; she’d begun crying in the middle of her conversation just before crossing the bridge, but the tears had been mostly silent, and if he hadn’t looked back every so often, he would never have known that she was still weeping. The hope that she wasn’t having second thoughts surprised him, though; after seeing how she’d been treated that morning, he didn’t want her anywhere near those Hobbits, though the one who’d brought her to tears had seemed better than the others. But to see any child treated in such a way, let alone a girl, would send fire through any self-respecting Dwarf’s veins.

Granted, she was nearly an adult, according to Tharkûn, and already an adult, according to herself. But as far as Bofur was concerned, she was still underage, and therefore still a child.

He missed the initial question, but he focused again when Tharkûn, frowning, rumbled, “On the contrary, my dear, I’d like to know the answer as much as Kíli.”

Jaw clenched, she looked between the three for a few seconds before finally answering, “They’ve never actually tried to hurt me before, but yes. Other than that, the way they acted this morning was usual.”

Most of the Company exclaimed at that, but Bifur was the only one to approach her, speaking rapidly. She leaned back slightly, brow furrowed, and Bofur tapped his cousin on the arm; Bifur sat beside him without any further prompting, and Bofur met the girl’s gaze. “He asked, ‘why would anyone treat someone as young as yourself so dishonorably’. I was wondering the same thing, actually.”

Glancing between him and Bifur, she sighed, then lowered her eyes, brow still furrowed; the ambient noise in the camp dropped drastically, but she didn’t seem to notice. “They—” Biting her lip, she started over. “I don’t know anything about Dwarven politics, or culture, or anything, really, so I’m not sure how much sense this will make.” Raising her head, she met Bifur’s eyes, then his, and he got the sense she meant it as a warning, of sorts.

Taking a deep breath, she leaned back on her hands, which only served to call Bofur’s attention to how thin she was compared to the other Hobbits. If there’d been a few other slim Halflings in the town, he might not have thought anything of it, but the fact that every Hobbit he’d seen—from the elders sitting in the sun to the children running around the hills—had been positively fat in comparison didn’t seem to bode well.

“Among Hobbits, there are really two groups, or at least there effectively are. Hidebound Hobbits, such as Bagginses, and more adventurous Hobbits, such as Tooks. My father was a Baggins, and the epitome of one, at that.” A sad, fond grin crept over her even as a few fresh tears streaked down. “Quiet and respectable and utterly unadventurous. In all aspects but one.” Her grin turned a bit more impish, but the grief was no weaker. “My mother was his exact opposite: loud and brash, didn’t give a fig for what anyone thought of her, and I don’t think she ever in her life went six months without slipping off for some adventure or another, minor as they were. But he loved her, and she him.”

“They don’t sound very well suited, if you don’t mind me saying.” Bofur tacked on the last hurriedly, not wanting her to think he meant any insult.

She met his eyes with that same sort of surprise as before, and this time gave him a proper smile. “By all rights, they shouldn’t have been. But even though he had no appetite for adventure himself, he loved to hear about hers, and she always brought back books for him when she could. And she couldn’t bear to be tied down for long, but she always came home to him, and gladly. She told me once that home meant everything to her, but that half of the meaning was that she could trust it, and he, would always be there to come home to.”

Sniffling quietly, her expression sobered somewhat. “But they epitomized the best of their families. Most Bagginses, and the other reserved families, for the most part, shared my father’s better qualities, but they’re also so bogged down by selfishness and gossip-mongering and pettiness that you wouldn’t think they were even related. I can’t tell you much about the Tooks and such, to be honest. I’ve hardly seen any of them for nearly a decade. Anyway, as I told Gandalf earlier, after my parents died, one of my father’s brothers got custody of me, and he and his wife have been trying to make me into a proper Baggins ever since.”

“And that’s bad?”

She smiled at Fíli, but it was the cold smile from that morning, almost more of a grimace than anything, and the blonde deflated a tad. “Seeing as how I am very much my mother’s daughter, yes.” Turning to face forward again, she stared into the flames for a few moments, looking almost as broody as their esteemed leader, before snorting suddenly, and smiling genuinely. “They’ve been trying to starve the Took out of me for eleven years, and where am I now? Camping with thirteen Dwarves and a Wizard.” Firelight dancing impishly in her eyes, she smirked at Bofur. “I don’t think they did a very good job, do you?”

“That doesn’t answer why you weren’t placed with your mother’s family, as you should’ve been.” At Tharkûn’s words, she stilled again, the tired impassiveness from earlier settling over her features and making her look older than anyone so young should.

Her eyes fell to her feet as she responded quietly, “I told you before, I wasn’t well. I wasn’t the only one, of course, but Longo and Camellia took over my care while I was recovering, and then insisted that they were the best equipped to help me. And then once I was healed, obviously I still needed to be watched by someone who knew how quickly my moods could turn, seeing as how I was still so irrational.” Bitter sarcasm drenched her last sentence, and her eyes shone a bit more in the firelight than before. “As for this morning…” She shook her head, eyes distant and thoughtful. “All the people there were my family, if only distantly, in some cases. In their eyes, I was shaming them all by even speaking to Dwarves, let alone begging to go off on some adventure. They were trying to correct my ‘errant behavior’, that’s all, and they know, after eleven years, or think they know, that I’m not particularly inclined to listen to them.”

“They…” Ori was slack-jawed, quill hanging limply from his fingers. “They were all your family?” Bofur shared his awe, to an extent, but he’d talked with Hobbits once or twice before, so it wasn’t as much of a surprise to him.

She just furrowed her brow at the scribe and looked to Tharkûn, who chuckled. “Dwarves don’t tend to have quite as many children as Hobbits, my dear. Ori, Nori, and Dori are brothers, and considered a bit of a large family by Dwarven standards.”

Now it was the Hobbit’s turn to gape, and she stammered a bit: “Wha— That— H—” Finally, she shook her head sharply, though she still seemed to be processing. “Well, better explain that, as well. I’m an only child, as is Longo and Camellia’s brat, Otho—”

“Belladonna Baggins!”

In possibly the most childish display she’d shown yet, she pouted sullenly at the scowling Wizard. “Little pest threw a rock at my head, I’ll call him what I like.”

He didn’t look nearly appeased, but Fíli’s interjection surprised most of the Company. “So that was his name? I can’t say I approve of his choice of weapon, but I can’t fault his aim.”

The girl, Miss Baggins, turned to Fíli, petulance entirely replaced by concern. “That’s right, you caught it. Did you ever get your hand tended to?”

“Why would he need to?” The question sounded half a threat, but to her credit, she met Thorin’s eyes steadily while Fíli answered; a part of Bofur still couldn’t believe that anyone could listen to the Princess speak and not realize that she wasn’t a ‘he’, but o-Khazad weren’t exactly renowned for their perceptiveness.

“The rock he threw was sharp enough to slice my hand open. Only shallow, though; Óin said it’d heal before the month was out.”

Thorin just grunted, and Miss Baggins was silent for a moment, evidently waiting for either him or Fíli to say something further. When they didn’t, she cleared her throat. “As I was saying, I’m an only child, but that’s very rare. Da was the eldest of five, and Mum was ninth of twelve—” The Company, Bofur included, couldn’t hold back their astonishment, and it was quite a few minutes before she could continue, looking rather bemused. “Yes, well, twelve is unusual, but still. Most families have five or six children, so I have a rather ridiculous number of Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins.”

“And even so, you would abandon your family so easily?” Tharkûn looked as though he wanted to smack Thorin, as did, surprisingly, the Heirs, but Miss Baggins just raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve barely left Bag-End without having to sneak out for ten years, and even before the Winter, Mum and Da never got on well with his family. I’m related to them by blood, not by choice, and believe me, if it weren’t so very ‘unHobbitish’, they’d have thrown me out of Hobbiton years ago. They’ll make a fuss for a few months and then they’ll be glad to be rid of me. The only thing that might have kept me there was Bag-End, but that hasn’t been my home for years, really. Just the place where I live.”

“Then what do you hope to find by coming with us?” Thorin’s expression made it perfectly clear that he was expecting to hear something silly or naïve, but Bofur was still trying to process the concept that this girl’s family would so easily part from a girl not yet an adult.

But her simple, honest answer brought him out of his thoughts. “Something better. Wherever that may be.”

Bombur began ladling out stew before anyone could think of something to add, and there was relative silence for quite a few minutes as everyone ate; despite never seeming to eat faster than anyone else, the girl somehow managed to finish off her bowl and most of Tharkûn’s in the same time it took Bofur to empty his. Bombur brought her another serving without a word, tactfully ignoring her blush, which she finished just as completely as the first two; if this was a Hobbit’s usual appetite, it was little wonder that Tharkûn had been so disturbed to hear that her family had been restricting her meals.

It was little wonder she was so thin compared to them.

And it was little wonder that she was so desperate to get away that she ran off with a group of complete strangers on nothing more than the word of a Wizard.

As Bofur watched, Balin moved to sit near her as Bombur handed her a fourth serving; she blushed again. “You needn’t bring any more, I’ve had enough for tonight.”

Tharkûn huffed. “I’ll thank you not to lie, Belda. We departed before Elevensies and haven’t stopped for a meal since; I’ll not have you starving now you’re with us.”

“Elevensies?”

Tharkûn chuckled at Ori’s question. “Hobbits have no less than six meals a day, Master Ori, and prefer seven.” This, of course, was met with incredulity from most of the Company, but watching her eat, just as hungrily as before, Bofur could believe it; Thorin, clearly, could believe it as well, as Bofur caught a few snatches of muttering about ‘eating them out of house and home’. Tharkûn sent a glare the King’s way, but easily answered the Company’s questions: “Well, now, let’s see. Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevensies, Afternoon Tea, and Supper.”

“You forgot Dinner.”

He chuckled again; Bofur was a cheery man, but even he was starting to wonder about Tharkûn’s apparent mirth. “So I did. Afternoon Tea, Dinner, then Supper.”

Looking slightly shell-shocked, Bombur began to ladle out another bowl, but the girl shook her head entreatingly. “No, don’t— I don’t need another.” Ducking her head, she muttered, “I’ve gotten by on less than this.” Head bowed as it was, she didn’t see the sorrow that moved over Tharkûn’s face, or the glances exchanged throughout the Company.

But there was nothing more to be said about that subject, so Bofur smiled. “So, lass, I’m sure you’re curious why we needed a burglar.”

Her head shot up. “Burglar?!” Letting out a shocked laugh, she shook her head, grinning. “I can see why you needed a Hobbit. Although,” she looked a bit worried, “I hope you don’t expect me to be an expert. I’ve never stolen a thing in my life.” Tharkûn huffed, but said nothing; evidently, she knew what he was thinking of, as she threw him an irritated glance. “Carrots and mushrooms don’t count, Gandalf. Everyone steals those.”

He raised a bushy brow at her. “‘Everyone’ does not manage to pilfer two baskets’ worth and get away unscathed.”

She waved a hand slightly, dismissing his words. “It was a rainy day, that’s all; he couldn’t track me. But why do you need a burglar?”

Balin cleared his throat, drawing her attention to him. “We are Dwarves of Erebor, lassie. Have you heard of Erebor?” Shaking her head, she continued eating, looking like nothing more than one of Bombur’s tots settling in to listen to a particularly engrossing story. “It lies far to the East, over ranges and rivers, beyond woodlands and wastelands. It’s known as the Lonely Mountain in some places, as it has a single, solitary peak. And it is our home. We were driven out many years ago, and our Quest is to reclaim it.”

“But there are those who don’t believe it can be done.” The eyes of all present turned to Thorin, though Bofur noticed that she didn’t stop eating, only slowed. “They say that it is a fool’s errand, that the Quest is ours and ours alone. To prove them wrong, we must retrieve the Arkenstone.”

“Arkenstone? What is that?” Tilting her head as she spoke, she set her bowl down beside her.

“The symbol of the Line of Durin. With it, no Dwarf would dare refuse us aid.”

Raising an eyebrow incredulously, she deadpanned, “Yes, that’s helpful.”

“It’s a gem, lass.” After tossing a pointed glance at Thorin, she focused entirely on Balin as he continued, “A large, white gem, more valuable than anything else in the mountain. We need a burglar in order to recover it without waking the beast.”

Staring at him expressionlessly, she repeated, “The beast.”

Feeling a bit preemptively wretched, Bofur took upon himself to make sure she knew exactly what she was getting into; he’d never forgive himself if she died because she came along when she should’ve stayed safe at home. “That would be a reference to Smaug the Terrible, chiefest and greatest calamity of our Age.” Tharkûn was starting to glare at him, but Bofur ignored him as best he could. “Airborne firebreather. Teeth like razors, claws like meathooks. Extremely fond of precious metals. Think furnace, with wings.”

“A dragon.” He nodded; she still looked incredulous, but he could tell she understood now. “You intend to steal from a dragon. No, actually, you intend for me to steal from a dragon.” There was a laugh in her voice, but he couldn’t tell whether it was hysterical, morbid, or scornful.

“If you wish to turn back—” She cut Thorin off with a sharp glare.

“I believe I’m entitled to a moment or two to process the information, thank you.” True to her words, she was silent for a few moments, eyes distant, then exhaled abruptly in what might have been a laugh. “Well, I can’t truly say I would have chosen differently had I known before.”

“You’ll still come with us?” The young Prince looked more than a little hopeful, and Bofur had to suppress a smirk when he remember how cozy the two of them had looked sharing a horse, both of them ruby-red and flustered.

Her tone was wry, but her smile was sincere as she turned to Kíli. “I said I’d rather face a dragon than stay in the Shire, didn’t I? Can’t change my mind now and make myself a liar.”

Glóin, surprisingly, was the one to speak up, his voice gentle; in retrospect, Bofur should’ve expected it from the only other father in the group. “Lass, there’s no shame in turning back. You didn’t know what we would ask of you, and this is far too much for anyone as young as yourself.”

Sighing, she met his eyes evenly. “I appreciate your concern, but it’s unnecessary. A Baggins always keeps her word, and I give you all my word now that assuming you allow me to accompany you to Erebor, I will take the Arkenstone from Smaug, and I will do whatever is required of me in the meantime.”

Silence met her words, but Thorin broke it after a few moments. “Balin.”

The elder froze in the process of pulling a scroll out of his jacket, and half turned to the King. “She must sign the contract, Thorin.”

“She is not of age.” Scowling, she opened her mouth, but Thorin continued before she could speak. “If she remains with the Company past Rivendell, then she will sign, and not before.”

Having seen how reluctant the King had been to bring his nephew and niece, Bofur knew that he was likely trying to give her as long as possible to change her mind while she could, but by the way the girl’s scowl faded into something more despondent, he didn’t think she’d heard anything but a rebuff.

“Belladonna, a word.” Tharkûn stalked off before anyone could say anything, so, with the siblings’ help, she stood shakily and followed the Wizard.

 

* * *

 

Gandalf

 

Judging that he was far enough from the Company that they wouldn’t be overheard, Olórin waited for Belda to join him. Lowering himself to the grass, he lit his pipe as he waited; she appeared shortly, but her progress was slow, and a pang of remorse struck him for forgetting she’d never ridden before. She’d managed, somehow, to persuade one of the ponies to walk beside her in lieu of a crutch, and if it hadn’t been for her expression, she’d have looked exactly like her mother at her coming of age.

But Belladonna had never been as grim as her daughter when he and Belda had spoken earlier. She’d always been as mischievous as her soul-form, and as wild. Bungo had been quietly industrious, as could be expected, but he’d been optimistic to the end. Before the Fell Winter, Belda had behaved much like her mother, as well, though she’d spent just as much time reading with her father.

Olórin closed his eyes for a moment. He’d been gone too long, far too long. And he had the horrible feeling that Belda had been the one to pay the price for his negligence.

He extended a hand to her once she was close enough, and she took it mutely, using her grips on him and the pony, which he now recognized as Kíli’s, to lower herself slowly, rather than falling as she had before. Once she was settled beside him, and Myrtle was grazing a ways away, he kept hold of her hand, the sharpness of it chilling. “Oh, my dear, what have you suffered?” Her hand twitched, but she didn’t respond, and he sighed. “I should have been there.”

At that, she shook her head quickly, though her voice was no louder than his. “You didn’t know. It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is, kit.” She stilled, and he continued quietly. “I had to leave at first, but I should’ve come back to check on you rather than assuming you and your parents were well. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

For a long, long moment, she was silent. Then, clumsily, she moved to sit more closely beside him and leaned heavily against his side. “I accept your apology, and yes, I forgive you, Afi.”

The once-familiar endearment brought rare tears to Olórin’s eyes, and he hugged the girl gently to him. “I haven’t been called that in some time.”

She huffed lightly. “I haven’t been called ‘kit’ since the Winter. I missed that.”

A minute or so passed in silence before he allowed himself to murmur, “I miss them.”

Sniffling softly, she wiped at her face, though whether at her nose or eyes he couldn’t tell. “So do I.”

Another minute passed, and another. Finally, he sighed. “You need to tell them, kit.”

“You know I can’t.” Unfortunately, she was right. Hobbits’ heritage was a closely-guarded secret, perhaps their most so.

“Having a shape-changer among the Company would be a great boon.” Especially if she took after her mother as much as he suspected she did; Belladonna had been absolutely fearsome in her fox-form.

“They’ll have one anyway, if I can convince them to let me stay. Besides which, as everyone seems so concerned with, I’m not of age yet.” Remembering that, he tightened his grip on her slightly; she shifted to lean more fully against him.

“They’ll find out when you come of age, kit.” It wasn’t as though it was subtle, or at least it shouldn’t be. A Hobbit’s coming of age was marked by his or her First Shift, and he’d supplied the fireworks for more than one party. They were huge celebrations, usually lasting most of the night and into the morning, with food and drink aplenty, and whatever soul-form the new adult had, he or she was welcomed by family, friends, and pack alike.

Belladonna’s coming of age had been unusual in that she was the first fox for several generations, but she’d always been rather solitary, so it hadn’t bothered her. But Belda took after Bungo in that, she always had. Beavers weren’t especially social creatures, but family was extremely important to them, and Bungo had been no exception. He would have floundered if he’d been alone as Belladonna was, and Olórin couldn’t help but think that Belda would be much the same.

She, evidently, thought differently. “Not if I hide it.”

“On the road? In the middle of Orc territory, or worse?” The First Shift was entirely involuntary, and exhausting, as well, once .

“I’ll figure something out.” The stubborn edge to her voice was more than a little reminiscent of Bungo, and Olórin hid a pang of grief. He’d lost too many friends to count, but each and every one was as painful as the last. He would mourn Bungo and Belladonna for the rest of his days, however long Eru gave him. And he would mourn new friends, as well; Belda, Thorin, the Company, Arathorn, and others not yet born. They would weigh on him as much as those that came before them, but he’d long since learned that even a single day spent in laughter and peace with one of his friends was well worth an eternity of grief.

Every day was a gift from Eru, as was Belda herself. “The perfect mixture of your parents, do you know that?” He hadn’t thought before speaking, or he might have thought better of the words, but even so, he wouldn’t have expected her to press her face against his robes, shaking with near-silent sobs.

Despite all his years, he still hadn’t the faintest idea how to comfort anyone, let alone a young girl, and so he just kept his arm around her and waited. Fortunately for him, she calmed after only a minute or so. “I’m sorry, I just— Everyone says I’m my mother through and though, that there’s nothing of my father in me, that—”

She didn’t continue, but he could imagine what they must have said all too well. “I take it you were being literal when you said you were ‘very much your mother’s daughter’?”

As he’d hoped, she snorted lightly, and nodded; he suspected she was using the hem of his robe as a handkerchief, but he couldn’t bring himself to scold her. When she didn’t still have tears in her voice, perhaps. “All the prey-families have been terrified of me almost since the Winter.”

As befit shape-changers, Hobbits were the only sentient peoples besides others of their type to be able to detect the differences between the scent of prey and predator. As such, the families were divided by that distinction as much as the lines she’d told the Company. But movement caught his eye, and he nodded to Myrtle, still grazing contentedly. “And yet the ponies have no fear of you.”

She scoffed lightly, but he could hear the confusion in her voice. “Full animals never do. They aren’t affectionate with me like they are with prey-Hobbits, but they aren’t afraid of me, either. Mum couldn’t get within ten paces of a pony before it started to get nervous, but I rode that one all day and she’s still fine.” Quietly, she clicked her fingers, and the pony ambled over to her with no further prompting. Lying down in front of them, the pony stretched out her head to nudge Belda’s hand gently, then clacked her teeth and drew her head back, keeping it relatively low. “I don’t know as much about ponies and horses as I wish, but I know that’s not the way she would act if she were afraid of me. She has to be able to tell I’m a predator. But she’s not afraid of me, even though she’s just an animal; she ought to be driven by her instincts more than Hobbits. But thinking, reasoning Hobbits are the ones who act as though I’m going to eat them at any moment.”

He watched all this with a frown; she was right, the pony wasn’t afraid of her, but there was something about her behavior he couldn’t put his finger on. He was as much of an expert on ponies as Belda, and he wished he could consult with Aiwendil over the matter. He could only offer part of an answer, but he hoped it would help anyway. “There is such a thing as overthinking, my dear. It’s possible that the others have ignored something they should’ve heeded.” She only nodded, and he glanced down, but couldn’t see anything past her curls. Though he was curious: “You know your form, kit?”

She did, obviously, she had to; the awareness would have crept in over the last decade, couched in dreams and cravings and burgeoning instincts, but what he was truly curious about was whether she would tell him. Among Hobbits, only family and perhaps the closest friends were told before the coming of age party. Part mischief, part self-preservation, and part shyness, it was rather taboo to tell anyone who wasn’t completely, utterly trusted to keep the secret. He wouldn’t push her if she chose not to tell him, and he would understand if she didn’t, but he was curious nonetheless. She nodded. “I don’t think I’ll be any help before we reach the Lonely Mountain, but I think I’ll have an edge once I’m inside.”

Letting out a slow breath, relief spread through him. With how certain she sounded, and her earlier statement about being her mother’s daughter, she had to be a fox, or something similar, something small and even more stealthy, which would ensure her safety in Erebor far better than anything he could do. Nodding, he readied himself to resume his ‘normal’ cheer; it was easier, usually, to smile and chuckle than to let himself show the grief that dogged him. “All the more important we convince Thorin, then.” A thought occurred to him. “It might be a good idea to introduce you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple notes:   
> 1) Yes, Fíli is still a girl, and yes, Thorin meant to refer to her as 'he'. The Company don't realize that she can tell the difference between male and female Dwarves, so they're talking about Fíli like they would to a Man or an Elf.   
> 2) I hope it wasn't too confusing to have Gandalf think of himself as 'Olórin'. As far as I can tell, that would have been his original name, way back before he came to Middle-Earth, so it makes more sense to me to use that than one of the names he was given after that. And on the same note, 'Aiwendil' is Radagast.   
> 3) 'Afi' is Icelandic for 'Grandfather'. Really, he's her godfather, but it's a nickname. And yeah, I got a little bored with using Irish for Hobbits, so Icelandic! I got the idea from this one fic, but now I can't remember which one it was. :(  
> And lastly 4) you'll find out what kind of shape-changer she is tomorrow. (^u^)  
> I'll do ages tomorrow, too, since this is already kind of long. Hope you liked it!  
> À demain!


	3. Dwalin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The big(ish) reveal. Oh, and some Trolls.

Dwalin scowled at the fire as Bombur cleaned up dinner. He couldn’t hear the Halfling moving about the camp. He never could; she’d been as silent as a wraith since she’d adapted to riding enough not to fall over her feet every five seconds. That, in and of itself, was irritating enough, but he couldn’t even track her using the ponies, as they were eerily noiseless when she was near them. Granted, when she wanted to be heard, there was no ignoring her; she was downright blunt in her confidence, and he’d had to suppress a grudging, and growing, respect for her sharp tongue. It was somewhat easier when she was disrespecting Thorin, but he couldn’t fairly dislike her for it, as she never said a word to the King unless he provoked her.

Actually, she barely said a word to any of them unless she wanted something. She bantered with the Heirs easily enough, and spoke easily with Tharkûn, but only rarely took the initiative. The debacle the night before had been one such case, or begun as such. She’d been the one, paler than usual, to ask about the cries that had echoed over the hills. Of course, then she hadn’t said a word for the rest of the night, prompted or not, but even so.

Though, mute didn’t mean unable to communicate; she’d evidently not been told of Thorin or the siblings’ ranks, and glared fiercely at Tharkûn until he excused himself, beard twitching suspiciously, for a smoke. Any lingering distance between herself and the Heirs had faded quickly, and by now she was back to her usual, irritating self.

Instinct borne of a century and a half of experience prompted Dwalin to look up, and somehow he wasn’t entirely surprised that the Halfling was standing in front of him, arms crossed. Her expression wasn’t angry, though. If anything, it was challenging. “Teach me to fight.”

Most of the sound in the camp died away, but she didn’t react, though he could tell by the way her pointy ears twitched that she noticed. “Why?”

He wasn’t opposed to the idea; if she could fight, that would be one less youngling for him to watch, or would be if she weren’t a lass, but he wanted to hear her reasons first. He wasn’t going to waste his time on a bored child.

But she didn’t pout, or glare, or even react in any way that would indicate that she hadn’t been expecting the question; she just spoke calmly and clearly. “Because every time we hear so much as a twig break, you look toward me, then to the Princes,” there was a slight, pointed emphasis on the title, and she glanced at Tharkûn irritably before meeting Dwalin’s eyes again, “which I’m going to assume is because I’m young, female, and defenseless, and since there’s only one of those that anyone can do anything about, teach me to fight.”

Slowly, he rose to his feet and to his full height, holding her eyes all the while; he was slightly gratified by the fact that as with Tharkûn the day they’d left Hobbiton, she didn’t back down an inch. “And what makes you think I’m going to spend my time tutoring children?”

He could see a faint tension in her neck, now, but her expression didn’t change other than to raise an eyebrow. “Fíli and Kíli look at you every time they so much as draw their swords. Even if you don’t usually teach, they trust you to correct them when they’re wrong, at least as much as they do Thorin.”

At that, he couldn’t stop a shred of disbelief from showing, and her jaw tightened. But she still didn’t retract the statement, and he had to admit, if only to himself, that it had been an impressive inference. She was right, of course; he’d been teaching the pups since they were old enough to hold weapons, but not for several years, other than the occasional correction. Despite himself, he was curious. The Halflings they’d seen in the Shire had been soft, well-fed, obviously not a fighter among them. But this chit had spine, he had to give her that, and she’d learned to ride well enough. Keeping a relatively neutral expression, he growled, “Axe or sword? What’s your weapon of choice?”

The only clue to her relief was an easing of the tension in her neck and jaw. “I’ve no idea. I’ve never even held a weapon.” He just grunted, seeing a long slog ahead of him.

 

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda groaned inaudibly as she rolled her shoulders. Now that her legs finally didn’t feel like they were about to fall off at the end of the day, her arms took their place. But it wasn’t as though she could complain; she’d brought this on herself, asking Dwalin to teach her. But with how often Fíli and Kíli looked to him or Thorin for approval, she didn’t trust them to teach her without needing to be corrected, and while Glóin and Thorin were as skilled, or seemed to be, one solely wielded axes that looked to weigh more than her, and the other had hardly looked at her since that first night with the Company.

She was rather torn about that, really.

On the one hand, he looked so angry all the time that she usually wanted to hide rather than draw his eye. On the other, it gnawed at her that she still wasn’t a member of the Company, that there was still a chance she would be sent back to the Shire. Though the second was a moot point, as she’d rather chew off her own leg than go back for anything longer than a visit.

But still. She wasn’t a fox, like her Mum. She wasn’t made to be solitary. Alone in a crowd, she was growing used to, but entirely alone? She’d had far too much of that in the last decade.

And she was as far from a beaver as one could be, but she was like her Da in that she needed to be useful, she needed a place. She needed a pack. And she was a little scared at how dearly she already wanted to be part of theirs. Not that they could rightly be called a pack; most of them, save the ‘Urs, certainly smelled like a family, even if the ‘Ri’s common scent was faint enough that they couldn’t be closer to the others than cousins, but Bofur, Bombur, and especially Bifur didn’t share any scent with the rest. They were certainly a family on their own, and close-knit enough that Bifur smelled somewhere between brother and cousin to the other two, but the only scent they shared with the rest of the Company was that of travel, ponies, and metal.

But by necessity, if by nothing else, they were all pack. Just not hers. She was running out of time to convince Thorin to let her stay, and she was out of ideas on how. She hadn’t given a single word of complaint as she learnt to ride, or about the small rations, she’d volunteered to tend the ponies, and done well, she thought. She’d even approached Dwalin a fortnight before, and been pleasantly surprised at how natural it felt to wield the daggers Fíli lent her to practice with. She was hardly a Dwarf, and certainly not any sort of experienced traveler, but she was doing her best not to be a burden, not to be useless, not to be defenseless. And for just over a month, now, Thorin had only looked at her with a dismissive sneer, if he looked at her at all, and she knew that he would send her away soon.

She didn’t know what to do.

But for now, she would content herself with the fact that the rain had finally stopped after days of constant downpour, that Dwalin had said her footwork was improving, if nothing else, and that her dreams, the night before, had been of flying over the clouds. Those dreams were always her favorite.

But then she would remember what she was, and who surrounded her. These Dwarves had lost their home, some of them their families, because of a dragon. They cursed Smaug almost constantly, and all his kind. If she did stay, how could she ever tell them the truth? How could she hide it from them? And most of all, once they knew, how could they do anything but chase her away, or worse?

They were Dwarves. They would never tolerate a dragon, even a Hobbit-dragon.

But she had time, or so she hoped. Her coming of age wouldn’t be until the end of September, and if she remembered her maps correctly, they would easily reach Erebor by then, if they kept up this pace. If they did, then maybe they would let her stay long enough to deal with Smaug. The thought sent a chill down her spine, but it was a possibility. She had no idea how big Smaug would be, if he’d grown since taking Erebor, if he’d wasted away without a steady supply of food, but if anyone or anything could challenge him, she could. She knew exactly how big she’d be once her First Shift came (long enough to curl halfway around Hobbiton), she knew that she’d be well able to fight (with curved claws long enough to slot around the door to Bag-End, and teeth sharp and long enough to rip through trees like so much pastry, though without armor), and she knew that the Dwarves had no thought of fighting him except to use the Arkenstone to gather an army.

Maybe… maybe if she killed Smaug, they wouldn’t kill her?

A nudge on her arm called her out of her thoughts, and she looked up, hiding a flinch, to meet Bofur’s smiling eyes. “Alright there, lass?”

Blinking at him, she realized that night had fully fallen, and that Gandalf still hadn’t returned. An empty bowl was in her hands, and she realized, as well, that she’d eaten without even noticing. Smiling, and doing her best to keep it from being visibly self-deprecating, she met Bofur’s eyes again. “I’m fine, thank you. Do you need help with anything?”

He nodded, and she stood, brushing off her trousers. “Yeah, take these to the lads? They’re watching the ponies.” He held two bowls out to her, and she set off without any more fuss.

The way the Dwarves acted around her was odd. She’d seen them, a few times when she’d wandered off (to take care of business or to tend the ponies), when they were alone, when they didn’t realize she was watching, and they were… boisterous, she supposed would be the best word, or perhaps exuberant would be better. Then, when she returned to the group, they would all fall silent, and when they resumed their conversations, even if the subject was the same, their voices were low, and they were just generally restrained. Even Fíli and Kíli did it, and Gandalf never seemed to notice. It wasn’t much, compared to some of the other things she’d had to get used to, but it was one more reminder that she wasn’t really part of the Company.

She passed most of the ponies as she walked, keeping a careful eye on the bowls to make sure she didn’t spill, and as she passed, they all clacked their teeth at her, one by one, before returning to their grazing. She still wasn’t sure why they did that, but after a month, she didn’t really care. The siblings, on the other hand…

She slowed to a stop as the tops of their heads came into view, facing away from her, and took a few moments to gather herself, safe in the knowledge that they hadn’t heard her coming. Fíli, she didn’t mind being around; she was fun, she’d had lots of tips about fighting with daggers for her, and Belda thought she might be a good friend, if Thorin let her stay. Granted, Belda still didn’t really understand why everyone pretended Fíli was male, despite Gandalf explaining it that first night before they rejoined the others. But Kíli…

She couldn’t help it. Really, she couldn’t, but every time she saw him, she just wanted to reach up and feel his beard, or scruff or whatever he wanted to call it. It looked so scratchy and nice, and she was starting to think that that was her dragon instincts talking, but even so, she just wanted to touch hi— it, touch it, not him, that would be ridiculous. But still, ever since that first day of traveling, when he’d had his arm around her and his scent had surrounded her, even covering the scent of his pony, her heart had raced every time she was too close to him. He couldn’t hear it, she could tell, and she didn’t blush or sweat, and she was careful not to stammer or anything equally embarrassing, but still. Mortifying.

Almost as mortifying as the fact that Kíli tended to muddle her name first thing in the morning, and being called ‘Miss Boggins’ had become a bit of an inside joke between the two of them and Fíli. Well, that wasn’t mortifying in and of itself, but when one took into account how ridiculously pleased she felt whenever he used the nickname…

It didn’t help that she’d been riding with him because he and his sister had been protecting her, even if she would never have said, before that day, that she needed protection from her family. Escape, yes, but none of them had ever actually tried to harm her before then. Ignore? Yes. Starve? Yes. Lock the door to her room and board up the windows so that she couldn’t even tell what time of day it was, let alone escape? Yes. But never harm. She’d had Fíli’s blood on her jacket because she’d protected her; still had, in fact, as there hadn’t exactly been many chances to do laundry on the road. To her, though she was aware not to Dwarves, it had essentially been scent-marking. She’d had Kíli’s arm around her waist, and if she hadn’t been able to smell for herself that none of the Dwarves were shape-changers, she might have thought that the way his chin kept bumping into her hair had been scent-marking, as well.

Whether or not he’d intended to, he had marked her, both of them had, and she had to remind herself, several times a day, now, that she wasn’t a member of their pack. But her heart didn’t seem to want to listen.

Once she was as composed as she was likely to get, she moved closer, intentionally making a bit of noise so that she wouldn’t surprise them, but even so, they didn’t move. There was just enough space between them for her to stand, though she was careful not to touch them (as that would be altogether too self-indulgent) as she presented the bowls to them. When they still didn’t move, she glanced between them several times (trying and failing not to let her eyes catch on Kíli’s beard and eyes and lips), before venturing, “What’s the matter?”

She was looking at Fíli as she asked, and so Kíli’s voice made her heart jump a tiny bit more than usual as her eyes leapt to him, and she had to force her eyes up to his, away from his lips. “We’re supposed to be looking after the ponies.”

“Only we’ve encountered a…” Fíli met her eyes nervously, and she remembered with a jolt that in Dwarf-years, Fíli was only a few years older than her. “…slight problem.”

“We had sixteen.” Stubbornly, she kept her eyes on Fíli, though Kíli’s voice again sped her heart a fraction.

“Now there’s fourteen.”

Blood running cold, she looked out over the ponies as the siblings were doing. Thorin had been the one to assign them this duty, she remembered, and they looked up to him at least as much as she’d always looked up to her Mum. Instinct, though not reason, screaming that her pack-mates were in trouble, she could only form one coherent thought. “We are not telling Thorin.”

 

“Daisy and Bungo are missing.” The hair on the back of Belda’s neck was already standing up, but Kíli’s news didn’t help.

A pang of guilt struck her for not noticing that her own pony was gone, but try as she might, she could only tell Minty and Bungo apart by scent, and (the pony she now knew to be) Minty was grazing peacefully upwind a little ways off, just visible through the trees. Kíli was striding toward Fíli, standing by a felled tree on the other side of the clearing, and she moved to join them. She’d gone over halfway, past where she’d set the bowls down a minute earlier, before she was assaulted by the most horrible scent she’d ever had the misfortune to encounter. As quickly as she could, she clapped her hands over her nose and mouth, but she still had to fight a swell of nausea, the funk lingering on her tongue sickeningly. “Yavanna’s frost-bitten Ears, what the bloody den is that?!”

The siblings just furrowed their brows at her, and she realized she’d been muffled enough to be nearly incomprehensible. Kíli took a few steps toward her. “Miss Boggins?”

This time, even the nickname couldn’t break through the revulsion the scent had brought up, and she shook her head helplessly, risking enough of a gap between her hands to make her words actually comprehensible. “You can’t smell it?” Almost immediately, she pressed her hands down again, though she moved a bit closer to the siblings as she groaned, “Ohh, now it’s in my mouth.”

Quickly, she moved upwind of the tree, and risked a tiny sniff; evidently, the scent had mostly been on the tree, though there were still traces of it.

“What is it?” She just shook her head at Fíli; she had no idea. Fíli looked over the tree again, but was distracted quickly. “Hey. There’s a light.” She moved a bit further into the forest, jerking her head in the direction she was looking, and Belda hurried after her, along with Kíli; the two of them had been on the same side of the tree, after all. Clearly, how close they ended up beside each other, crouched behind another log, was a complete coincidence. And if she was just a tiny bit closer to him than to Fíli, well, that was just because of how uneven her footing was, of course. “Stay down.”

She leveled a flat glare at Fíli; she was not a silly fauntling, thank you, she knew very well how to hide in a forest. Endless games of hide-and-seek with her Mum had taught her that, and more besides. The sound of coarse, harsh laughter wafted to them as the wind shifted, and she clapped her hands back over her nose and mouth so roughly that she half-thought she’d have bruises in the morning. Gagging, she barely managed to answer Kíli’s questioning glance. “That would be the smell.”

More laughter, now accompanied by grunts, drifted toward them, and Kíli’s expression darkened tremendously; it tripled his resemblance to his uncle. “Trolls.”

In near-simultaneous blurs of movement, both siblings vaulted over the log and moved stealthily (for Dwarves) toward the distant campfire. For a moment, she tried to figure out how to follow them without moving her hands, and she allowed herself a petulant groan when it became evident that it would be impossible. Resignedly, she steeled herself against the reek and dropped her hands from her face, arms screaming at her when she tried to vault over the obstacle as the siblings had done; thanks to her training with Dwalin, she was already quite a bit stronger than she had been, but seeing as how she’d already been sore before all this…

She followed them easily, her old forest-skills returning quickly, though even so, she could tell she was rusty. The wind shifted again as she caught up, and a fresh, disgustingly strong dose of the scent made her eyes water terribly at the same moment that her hands shot up, of their own volition, to block her airways. The result was that she half-tripped, half-careened into Kíli, and he steadied her, hands on her waist, as they crouched behind a tree while the crashing of something huge and clumsy and far, far too close for comfort went past. From what she could see of his expression, he looked very concerned, and if her vision hadn’t been so blurry, she might have been able to appreciate it more, but as it was, she was just a bit preoccupied with the hulking shape she could just make out.

Blinking away the blur, she forced herself to lower her hands to steady herself on the wood. “It’s got Myrtle and Minty!”

It, or perhaps he, held one pony under each arm, and the way they whinnied, desperately trying to get away, sent a frisson of something dark and feral and possessive through her; with it came a phantom feeling of lashing a non-existent tail, and she had to consciously stop herself from baring her teeth or trying to extend claws that weren’t there yet. The fact that the Trolls intended to eat the ponies was self-evident, and she didn’t waste her breath on voicing it.

But the siblings had told her more than enough stories of various hunting mishaps for her to know that they would have at least a fraction more idea what to do than she did. “What’s the plan?”

She kept her eyes on the camp as Fíli spoke, taking in what she could see of the Trolls, the ponies, the campsite as a whole. “We need more information.”

Kíli nodded, his hand tensing where it still rested on her back; she ignored the sensation as best she could, but her heart still raced. “We need to get closer.”

She stilled. “No. I need to get closer.” Kíli inhaled sharply, his hand clenching in her jacket, while Fíli shook her head rapidly; she looked between them as she hissed, “I can get closer than either of you, and they’ll never know I’m there, and I might be able to get the ponies away. Besides,” she looked toward the camp again, visions of herself rescuing the ponies and bringing them back single-handedly dancing tantalizingly at the back of her mind, with flashes of Gandalf’s proud smile, Dwalin’s gruff thanks, Thorin’s ready acceptance of her into the pack. If she did this, there was no way that they could call her useless, there was no way that they could send her away. “I’m the Burglar, aren’t I? Trolls would seem to be good practice for a dragon.” Not that she really intended to sneak up on Smaug, but you never knew. He might be bigger than she expected.

A low sound pulled her eyes to Kíli; he’d started to say something, but stopped himself before the word, whatever it had been, could be recognized. No, she realized, Fíli had stopped him, and the two of them had a quick, though heated, exchange in that language Bifur always spoke. With how rarely the others spoke it even when she was away from the camp, she guessed that it wasn’t meant for outsiders’ ears, much like Hobbitish, and so she politely pretended not to hear them.

She couldn’t help listening anyway, though. The sound of it was like no language she’d ever heard before, like a thunderstorm in a forest, or perhaps a rockfall, but she’d never actually heard a rockfall, so she couldn’t be sure. After a minute or so, which she largely spent planning out a route to the camp that would keep her downwind of the Trolls, Fíli addressed her in Westron, and she turned to her. “You’ll just look around and come back.”

Delicately, she promised, nodding, “I’ll be careful.”

The siblings took that as promise enough and didn’t argue further when she slipped silently away; clearly, they weren’t used to Hobbits. Even the most honest Hobbits knew how important it was to say exactly what they meant, or run the risk of leaving a loophole to be exploited, and her Mum had made the teaching of it another game, like hide-and-seek, or as they’d called it, hide-and-track. Foxes were many things; they were stealthy, they were fierce, they were independent, and they were very, very clever. And a dragon she may be, but a fox-dragon she was, and she had learned her Mum’s lessons well.

Ignoring the both the Trolls’ stench and their conversation as best she could, she moved silently around the edge of their camp to the makeshift paddock. The ponies, as usual, clacked their teeth at her, but the sound was low and short enough to be easily missed by the raucous Trolls, and then they stood peacefully, not a sound to betray her. Huge, rough knots of rope formed the borders of the pen, knotted inexpertly by one who didn’t expect to untie them, and pulled too tightly for small Hobbit hands to tug loose. She stayed out of sight as one of the Trolls turned toward the ponies, gripping the fencepost lightly as she waited for him to turn away again; she could just hear the difference between which way he was facing.

“…ope you’re going to gut these nags. I don’t li…” Blood roared in her ears; the ponies shifted their weight nervously, she thought, and she tried to click her fingers to quiet them before she realized that she was gripping the fencepost with both hands, white-knuckled. Her jaw was clenched so tightly that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to speak if she tried, and again, she felt a phantom tail lashing behind her, phantom wings extended above her, fur and feathers alike bristling. She hadn’t taken the time earlier to wonder why she’d felt so possessive of a few ponies, but she understood now.

The Dwarves were her pack, or she wanted them to be. They were her equals, her pack-mates, her Company. The ponies weren’t her pack. They were her herd. They were her responsibility. Mostly, they were hers. She couldn’t stop herself, this time, from baring her teeth as she let out a low growl, forgetting for a moment that she didn’t have fangs yet, and the ponies shuffled their feet again. A flash of irritated compassion drew her eyes to them, and she glared at them before guilt struck her like a thunderclap: they were afraid of her. They’d never been afraid of her before, but now they were, because… because she was angry. They’d always known what she was, but only now did they fear her, because only now was she letting her instincts lead her by the nose.

Closing her eyes, she regrounded herself with an exercise she’d seen her cousins do on occasion: breathing deeply, she clenched and stretched her fingers, rolling her shoulders, pushing away the phantom limbs and reminding herself that she was, in fact, a Hobbit, not a dragon. Slowly, the feral edges of her mind eased back to the distance she normally kept them at, and she opened her eyes to see that the ponies were calm again. Smiling, she nearly forgot why she was there. Too late, she realized that she couldn’t hear the Trolls anymore.

A flicker of movement was all the warning she had before a huge, craggy hand grabbed her, compressing the crouched position she’d been in so that her knees were forced against her chest, her feet nearly crushed, and her left elbow, caught between two fingers, felt as though it would snap off altogether, and take her arm with it. The pain took her breath away, and by the time she caught it again, she was flat on her back, the fire on one side, the Trolls on her other three.

“What is it?” One of them poked at her with a spoon, dripping something that smelled almost as foul as them onto her trousers.

“It don’t smell like food,” a slightly smaller one quavered, “I don’t like it.”

“Shut it, Tom. It’s hardly big enough to be a mouthful, let alone a threat.” The third leaned toward her, sneering, and the glint of malevolent intelligence in his eyes chased her voice away. “It don’t half smell tasty, though.”

The first shook his head slowly. “I dunno, William. ‘Member those wargs we caught? They’s all stringy-sour.”

Tom nodded jerkily. “It smells like them, all sour and bitey. I’m not eatin’ it, not by no means.”

William leaned closer, close enough that she could either hold her breath or pass out from the stench, and took a deep sniff. “Smells like something else, too. Something ‘ee two’ll eat, p’haps.” Leaning back slightly, he jabbed her in the ribs hard enough to make her release her breath with a gasp, then jabbed her again, chuckling. “There’s more of ‘ee out there, ain’t there?”

Still catching her breath from the pain, she just glared venomously at him, then at Bert when he sniffed her, as well. “You’re right, William. It’s not alone.”

A sick churning in her gut at the idea of leading them to the Company gave her the strength to growl, “Yes, I am.”

Tom picked her up, none too gently, but she was being squashed all over, rather than into a ball, so she was able to keep her focus on him as he glared fearfully at her. “He’s lying.”

“No, I’m not, I’m alone!” The last word was half a scream as Tom tossed her to William, who caught her even more roughly than she’d been thrown.

She couldn’t see Tom from her new position, but she recognized his voice. “Hold ‘is toes over the fire.” Terror swept away what breath she’d gathered; she was no fire-drake, and even in dragon-form she’d have no fondness for flames. “Make ‘im squeal!”

A screeching squeal came, then, and William loosened his grip on her just enough that she could twist to see that Tom was on the ground, holding his leg, and Kíli was glaring at the Trolls, sword in hand. “Drop her!”

Her heart raced as she looked at him, but she couldn’t say whether it was more from fear for him or her own pain. She’d have shouted at him to run, but her voice had again abandoned her. William squeezed her in response to Kíli’s demand, though she wasn’t sure it hadn’t been a reflex. “You what?”

“I said,” Kíli’s eyes held hers for a moment, far darker than when he’d recognized the Trolls, before lifting to William’s again as he spun his sword. “Drop her.”

Muddled mind catching up to his words an instant too late, she tried to shake her head at him, but was interrupted by William doing exactly what she should’ve realized he would: he ‘dropped’ her on Kíli. Well, threw, but either way, she was airborne for a too-brief moment, then crashed painfully onto him, somehow not getting impaled in the process. She thought she might have shrieked a bit, but the sound of a dozen Dwarves bellowing war-cries filled her ears an instant later, so she wasn’t sure.

She barely had time to register that she was, in fact, lying on top of Kíli before he moved her off of him, and then she was too busy keeping from crying out as her ribs screamed at her to answer Kíli honestly when he asked if she was alright; she just nodded and waved him toward the other Dwarves. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, keep him from his family.

Watching the fight helplessly, she scooted backwards to a tree before she even attempted to stand: her feet ached fiercely, but not enough to keep her off of them; her ribs protested enough that she kept as straight as she could as she stood, and tried to breath shallowly; she couldn’t bring herself to use the arm that had been half-crushed at all. But the churning in her gut eased slightly as she saw that the Dwarves were holding their own; they didn’t seem to be winning, to her eyes, but they certainly weren’t losing.

Frightened whinnies yanked her eyes past the fight, and she barely kept from snarling at the sight of her ponies in danger. Reining in her instincts, she nevertheless started to edge carefully around the clearing, avoiding the fight as much as she could. A glint of light caught her eye, and she scanned the ground for a moment until she found a huge dagger lying just where it could reflect the firelight. It was large and rough-made enough that it could only belong to the Trolls, but it would suit her purposes perfectly. Retrieving it was a tricky business, but within a minute or so, she was cutting through the ropes of the pen, the ponies waiting anxiously, but quietly nonetheless.

They rushed out as soon as she finished, away from the battle, and she watched them go with no small measure of relief.

It was then, of course, that she was snatched up again, pressure on her injured arm tearing a scream from her throat. It was thankfully short, but was met by a sudden silence as William and Bert took hold of one arm and leg each. The continual pain in her arm and feet left her breathless and light-headed, but she could still see the Company’s faces as they stared up at her, wide-eyed. Time seemed to be moving a bit more slowly than usual, though her eyes didn’t want to move at the right speed; she heard Kíli yell her name as though through water, but by the time she met his eyes, Thorin was already holding him back.

“Lay down your arms…” William’s voice and breath were close enough to leave her slightly stunned, and she wasn’t sure if he said anything directly after that. The Company had recovered from their shock quickly, and to a one, they held their weapons high, ready to attack, and she met Thorin’s eyes desperately, trying to wordlessly plead with him not to do what William said. He didn’t seem to understand, though, so she looked to Kíli, who looked even more angry than when he’d tried to rescue her before, but his only reaction was to narrow his eyes even further. “…or we’ll rip his off!”

Panic shot through her, and she shook her head frantically, struggling against their hold as best she could. “NO! No, Thorin, don’t d—” The two Trolls tightened their grips on all four of her limbs, and pain whited out her vision for an eternity; a piercing scream rang in her ears, and it wasn’t until she could see again and registered that her throat felt raw that she realized it had been her screaming.

Clanking metal called her attention back to the Company, and her heart plummeted as the last few, Kíli included, threw down their weapons. As Tom began the process of stuffing the Dwarves, one by one, into sacks, William and Bert kept their hold on her, though for whatever reason, they did slacken their grips a fraction. But even if she’d been able to slip free, which her arm guaranteed she wasn’t, she still would have hung limply in their grip.

The Company was in danger, would be killed, because of her. She’d been an impulsive idiot, a fool of a Took, and a selfish waste of a Baggins, like her family always said.

She’d put herself above the pack, and now the pack would pay the price.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's safe to say that no one guessed she was a dragon, yeah? Hopefully it wasn't anticlimactic.  
> Anyway, couple notes. First off, you might have noticed that Belda's definition of 'harm' is more than a little skewed. She'll be working on that, I promise.Secondly, part of the reason for this fic (the Belda/Kíli bits, at least) was that I get kind of tired of stories where there's huge amounts of drama just with the romance. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just. There's so many of them. So for this one, one of my goals was that Belda and Kíli are pretty much good with each other for the entire time. No dithering, no not realizing they like each other, just 'you're cute, I like you' with a solid friendship mixed in. Although, in Belda's case that's 'you're really hot, can I cuddle with you?' plus friendship.  
> Also, I was watching Poldark when I was writing the Trolls' dialogue, so they ended up a lot more Cornish than they were in the movie. Hopefully it's not too confusing.  
> Also-also, completely accidental cliffhanger. I didn't write this with chapters in mind, so I had to go back and divvy them up (which I mostly did by word-count, so most chapters are 4-6k), and this one was so huge that I had to break it in the middle, and this (as texaspeach pointed out) was just the best place. *shrugs* Go figure.  
> À demain!


	4. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really, it's a Baggins versus Trolls. Did you expect any other outcome?

The Trolls dropped Belda into her sack, tying it tightly enough that she had to be careful how she held her head to avoid cutting her air off. There was a brief discussion, after that, over whether to put her with the others or not, which she didn’t bother paying attention to, but evidently they decided it would be too much of a risk, and she was tossed to the ground a ways away from the Company; the collision with the stone knocked her breath away, but it was a small mercy in that she had no breath to scream again. She was on her back, so she could at least let her head fall back against the ground without suffocating, and she closed her eyes rather than face the Company’s accusing glares.

It also had the slim benefit that then she didn’t have to look at the half-naked half of the Company as one by one, Dori, Nori, Ori, Bofur, Bifur, and Dwalin were pulled out of their sacks, stripped of everything but their long underwear, and tied to a log that William set to turn over a fire. She’d tried not to listen to any of the proceedings until then, but at that point, a surge of self-disgust rolled over her, and she focused on the conversation again. If she was to be the last to die—as seemed likely, since two out of three Trolls had no interest in eating her—she deserved nothing less than to listen to each and every one of her pack’s last moments.

And every sound would serve as a reminder that it was her fault, that she was to blame. That she got them killed.

“…ould be sautéed and grilled, with a sprinkle of sage.”

Tom replied to Bert, sounding much closer to her than the cook was, “Ooh, that does sound quite nice.”

“Never mind the seasoning.” William, on the other hand, sounded about as far away as the other two. “We ain’t got all night. Dawn ain’t far away, let’s get a move on!” More quietly, he muttered, “I don’t fancy being turned to stone.”

Belda’s eyes shot open; that was right! Her Mum had told her a story or two of Trolls, and that was right, direct sunlight petrified them! Whether it was permanent or temporary depended on the story, but if she could delay them, just until sunrise, a day would be more than enough time, plenty of time, to save her pack!

Thinking furiously, she gritted her teeth and wrestled up to sit with her back to the stone, breathing harshly with the effort it took not to cry out and draw attention to herself. Bracing her right shoulder against the stone, she pushed up to her feet, and spoke as soon as she was able to do so with enough breath to mimic the Trolls’ accent; her Mum had always said it was a surefire way to swindle a measure of trust from complete strangers, and if there was ever a time to test it…

“Oi! What ‘ee think you’re doin’?”

All motion in the camp either slowed or stilled, though Tom scurried away from her laughably quickly. William, being the most intelligent Troll by leagues, was the first to speak. “You what?”

Almost as soon as he spoke, the Dwarves found their voices again, shouting various insults and criticisms, but she did her best to ignore the barbs; she’d had plenty of practice in Bag-End, but even so, each and every one felt like a well-deserved knife in her heart. “‘Ee can’ cook dwarves like ‘at, no’ and keep th’ flavor.”

William eyed her suspiciously. “What do you know about cooking Dwarf?”

Ignoring the way her ribs shrieked as the motion pulled on them, she straightened to her full height, glaring as fiercely as she’d been wanting to since she first saw him with her ponies. “I know ‘at sage’ll on’y make ‘em bi’er, and ‘at roasting ‘em ‘ike ‘at’ll make ‘em taste ‘ike smoke, no’ Dwarf.”

Bert eyed her nervously. “Mayhaps we should listen, William. ‘Ee sounds ‘ike ‘ee knows.”

She heard a muttered, “‘Ee would know”, from Tom, but focused on the other two; they’d be the ones to fool.

“‘At’s righ’, I do know, know ‘at ‘ee should get ‘em down fro’ there afore all the flavor’s covered up.”

“An’ ‘ow would ‘ee cook ‘em?”

Giving in to the urge to bare her teeth at William, a feral sort of satisfaction rose in her as he flinched slightly. “Skin ‘em, o’ course!” The Company redoubled their abuses, but she spoke over them. “Gets rid o’ all ‘at nasty hair an’ all, an’ then you put the skins into a pot, boil it up into a broth, save it for th’ next meal!”  
Dwalin’s voice just broke through the other’s, more accusing than she’d ever heard him, and she couldn’t quite say why it hurt more from him. Bert looked ready to follow her advice, but William spoke before he could do anything. “Wha’ a load of rubbish! I’ve et plen’y wi’ their skins on. Scarf ‘em, I say, boots an’ all!”

Despite his words, he didn’t look quite as sure as he sounded, and a spark of hope flared up, fanned by a faint, silvery scent that she would have recognized in the middle of a dungheap, though she wasn’t sure Trolls were preferable; Gandalf was back, and near enough for the wind, weak as it was, to carry a trace of him to her. For an instant, she was terrified that the Trolls had caught the scent, as well, but Tom’s next words disproved that in possibly the least relieving way possible.

“‘Ee’s right! Nothin’ wrong wi’ a bit o’ raw Dwarf.” He was on the other side of Bert, otherwise she would have seen what he was doing before then, but he helpfully lifted Bombur high enough for her to see him over the spit, and high enough that there was only one thing he could be planning. “Nice an’ crunchy.”

Panic flaring through her, she shouted out desperately, “No, ‘ee can’ ea’ ‘im, ‘ee’s… ‘Ee’s got…” For a horrible instant, her mind was completely blank, and she blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Worms! In ‘is tubes!”

Tom didn’t look convinced yet, but he did turn towards her and lower Bombur a fraction. “You what?”

“Oh, aye!” She nodded confidently as she scrambled for an explanation. “Can’ ‘ee smell it? ‘Ee’s infected, ‘ee an’ ‘is.” As she nodded to the Dwarves as a whole, Tom dropped Bombur with a yelp, and Bert was looking at the Dwarves on the spit uneasily. As such, she directed most of her next toward William, though she tried to look toward Bert and Tom often enough not to seem as though she were staring at any one of them. “I ‘ad a friend once, et a dwarf ‘ad worms i’ his tubes, and she swoled up ’til she burst!” As Tom scurried toward William, Bert backed toward Belda and away from the spit. “‘Er guts went everywhere, an’ ‘undreds an’ ‘undreds of ‘ittle worms came crawlin’ ou’ of ‘er, crawlin’ righ’ towards us, ‘twere a righ’ proper stampede! Like all the pasta ‘ee ever et, comin’ back t’ get ‘ee!”

The protests from the Company had gradually faded as her explanation got more sensational, and she thought they might have been starting to catch on that she was making it all up; the ones of the spit that she could see certainly looked less angry than they had. But unfortunately, William still looked suspicious as he stalked towards her.

“An’ what would ‘ee ‘ave us do? Let ‘em all go?” A shiver crept up her spine; she tried to scoff at the accusation, but he still scowled at her, towering over her. “Do ‘ee think I don’t know wha’ you’re up to?” Turning away from her again to face the other two, he raised his voice. “This li’le ferret is takin’ us for fools!”

“The dawn will take you all!” Gandalf’s voice rang though the clearing, coming from somewhere above Belda, and she nearly collapsed with relief. Then the rock behind her moved and she did fall, landing painfully on her side as sunlight streamed into the cleared and struck all three Trolls full-on; they screamed and writhed as their skin hardened, but within moments it was done. Three hulking statues were all that was left of them.

She was facing them, and therefore the Company, and she could see them clearly as they cheered Gandalf, grinning, other than Dwalin, who was justifiably impatient. Closing her eyes as relief made her boneless, she let her head fall to the ground and flopped onto her back to take the pressure off her injured arm. Gandalf’s scent, silvery and unlike any other, drifted over to her as she listened to him climb down to the clearing; he’d always smelled like rain, to her. Not like the actual scent of rain, but like the look of rain through a window, or like moonlight on a cloudy night as it streamed down in thick, intangible bands.

To contrast, what she thought she had pinned down as ‘Dwarf-scent’ was something like the feeling of raw stone under her hands, while Thorin, Kíli, and the rest’s family-scent was something like the chill of cold metal mixed with the thrill of standing just a tad too close to a bonfire. Bofur, Bombur, and Bifur’s family-scent, though, was like her Da’s carvings and the slightly-rough iron of the old cookware. Fíli’s personal scent was like paper and metal. Dwalin’s was like curling up in front of the fireplace and stargazing with her Da. Kíli’s personal scent, though she tried not to think of it often, was like sneaking sips of her Da’s Midsummer ale when he wasn’t looking and running through the woods with her Mum.

But reality edged out her musings, and her mood drifted down as she thought over the events of the night. She was still in pain, though she’d either found the one position that didn’t hurt too much or she was too exhausted to notice overmuch, but that was secondary. All of what had happened had been her fault. Her fault that she’d been caught, her fault that she’d been used as a bargaining chip, her fault that the Company had nearly died any number of times, her fault that they’d come within a hair’s-breadth of being eaten. Her fault. Her pack, and it had been her fault.

Involuntarily, her thoughts went to the Company: Kíli’s anger when the Trolls had had her; Thorin’s when he’d surrendered, and Kíli’s then, too; the entire Company’s vitriol for getting them caught. They must hate her. How could they not? Their insults and criticisms repeated again and again inside her mind, and each refrain was more convicting than the last.

The fabric at the sides of her neck tightened slightly, and she opened her eyes to see that Gandalf was untying the sack, expression as dark as the Company’s; as soon as he had it loose enough, she pulled it down herself with her good hand, nodding to the Dwarves. “Help them.”

“My dear—” Guilt-ridden as she was, the idea of listening to any false sympathy or condemnations couched in sugary words seemed worse than reliving everything with the Trolls again.

Heat sparking at the backs of her eyes, she met his gaze with a glare. “They need help, I don’t. Help. them.”

The look he gave her as he stood was was more disappointed than any words could convey, and she had to rest her head on her knees for several minutes before she thought she could do anything without breaking down entirely. It might not have taken as long, but every time she heard the Company’s voices, she remembered their anger— Thorin’s, Kíli’s, and Dwalin’s most of all.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Dwalin could barely slow his movements enough not to rip his tunic in twain as he dressed. The Halfling was sitting where she had been since Gandalf saved all their lives, not a finger lifted for the Company, not even an attempt to ask if they were well. It was sickening, and he could hardly stand to look at her.

He had more than a few articles to collect before he could decently approach her, not as many as some, but it took him longer to find them, and the Company in general was occupied with other matters by the time he moved to stand in front of the chit. Her hair had entirely escaped the clumsy tie, and covered her ears enough that he couldn’t see whether or not she’d heard him, and for a moment, he just examined her, as he might have any stranger. She was filthy, as all of them were, and her feet were near black with grime. Her left arm, nearest him, laid limply on the dirt. Slowly, she raised her head to meet his eyes, a stubborn defiance in the green even now.

He shook his head, and didn’t bother to try and stop his disgust from showing. “I ought to shear ye for what you’ve done. You don’t even know why, do ye?” Her eyes widened a hair at the question, then narrowed again as she pushed herself languidly to her feet. “Do you even know how many times you nearly killed us all?”

“Eight.”

The word was nearly inaudible, and if he hadn’t seen her mouth move, he might not have heard it at all. Accustomed, after decades of training spineless youths, to hearing nonstop excuses, the straightforward answer was unexpected enough that he could only growl, “What?”

As before, she held her ground against him, though he noticed that she didn’t even have the dignity to straighten fully. But her eyes and voice were sure, though the latter was still quiet. “I should’ve insisted we tell Thorin when we heard the Trolls, I should’ve just scouted like I said I would, I shouldn’t have let myself get caught, I should’ve told Kíli to run,” her voice cracked on the Prince’s name, but she didn’t slow, “I shouldn’t have been stupid enough to get caught again, I should’ve kept yelling for you all to leave me, no matter how they—” Her breath hitched and light began to gather along her lower lid, but she continued after a moment, “I should’ve done something sooner, and most of all, I should’ve told Thorin at the start.” He didn’t know how to react. After a moment of silence, she inhaled sharply, her expression tightening faintly. “Did I miss anything?”

The question was more what he would expect from someone her age, but the tone wasn’t; rather than sarcastic or hostile, it was almost interrogatory, as though she actually wanted to know if she’d left any mistakes out. And while he might, perhaps, expect that from a Dwarrow whose pride had been dented, her tone wasn’t right for that, either; not angry or bitter, or at least not at him. More than anything else, she sounded and looked as though she were angry at herself. One point niggled at him, and he glowered at her. “If we’d have left you, you’d have died.”

He’d expected shock, perhaps delayed fear, but not the harsh sincerity as she glowered up at him in turn. “Exactly.”

Brow furrowing as he stared at her, she finally seemed to lose her courage, and lowered her head. Sniffling almost too quietly to hear, she slunk away, but he couldn’t follow her. He was frozen, still trying to believe that he’d actually heard what he had. She’d just said, with more honesty than he thought she’d shown since they’d come across her in that farm-town, that they should have let her be torn apart by Trolls rather than save her. She was Kíli’s age, and female, and completely inexperienced when it came to fighting and such, and she wished she’d told them all not to rescue her.

No, he thought over her words again, she wished that she’d kept telling them not to rescue her. The thought didn’t seem to fit, until he went over her words before she screamed again. ‘No, Thorin, don’t d—‘. The scream, bloodcurdlingly young, had interrupted her, but he’d just assumed that she’d been begging them not to leave her. But…‘Don’t desert me’? Try as he might, that was the only wording that would fit that explanation. But ‘don’t do what they say’? ‘Don’t die for me’? Those made much more sense. And when Fíli had come running to tell them that the Burglar was in trouble, she’d stammered out something about losing the ponies before the Halfling had brought their food, but in her explanation, Belda hadn’t said anything about the pups’ culpability, only her own. She hadn’t taken any credit for delaying the Trolls until Gandalf got there, either, only said that she should have done it sooner.

She hadn’t tried to excuse her actions, she hadn’t tried to lessen her mistakes, she hadn’t tried to mitigate his anger. She hadn’t acted anything like he’d expected.

* * *

 

Gandalf

 

Olórin meandered through the campsite while the Dwarves busied themselves; it had all turned out well, all things considered. When he’d realized the trouble they were in, he’d been sure that he would be too late, but instead found Belda winding the creatures around her fingers, much as her mother had used to do with less lethal prey. He glanced at her, frowning. He’d had over a month to confirm that, as he would expect from the child of Bungo and Belladonna Baggins, Belda was clever, hardworking, dedicated, and often took the initiative when she saw something to be done, even if her efforts were rarely noticed.

The girl he’d grown to know would have found a way out of that bag, and would have jumped to untie the Company. She wouldn’t wait passively to be saved, and she wouldn’t sit back and doze while people—people she’d spent a month growing fond enough of for even him to notice—needed her help. Not unless something was wrong. He’d nearly made up his mind to go and get a straight answer from her, in fact, when he saw Dwalin walking over. Dwalin was a good man; tough, but fair and honest, and, like all Dwarves, almost excessively protective of women and children. He’d see she was taken care of.

As he turned back to his wandering, he nearly hit his arm on one Troll’s nose, and regarded it thoughtfully for a moment before tapping it on the head with his staff, smiling at the satisfyingly solid sound of the impact. “Where did you go to, if I may ask?”

Thorin’s voice broke him out of his reverie, and he answered simply, “To look ahead.”

“What brought you back?”

There was something almost satisfied in the King’s stance, and Olórin let his expression darken just slightly, lest the Dwarf forget why he’d left the Company in the first. “Looking behind.” Catching the faint reprimand in his tone, Thorin inclined his head, half-smiling, but the Trolls caught Olórin’s attention again. “Nasty business.” And not often as bloodless as it had been this time; Olórin had to force a small measure of cheer into his voice. “Still, all in one piece.”

Thorin’s expression darkened with his voice. “No thanks to the girl.”

Stilling, Olórin narrowed his eyes at the Dwarf, and his voice was a bit sharper than he’d intended. “She had the nous to play for time.”

Thorin snapped, “She nearly got herself killed.”

“Perhaps, and yet she is still the reason your Company is alive. Or did any of you think to keep the Trolls talking?” For a few seconds, Thorin held his gaze. Then, slowly, the righteous fury faded and his eyes dropped.

When he spoke, his voice was pitched to reach Olórin’s ears, but not the Company’s. “No. But even so, she might have died as easily as snap a twig.”

Thinking back to a thousand memories of coming across Belladonna in the midst of one or another of her adventures, whether at the top of a tree, standing on a precipice, or dining with Elves, Olórin murmured, “I find that difficult to believe.”

“You didn’t hear her scream.” At that, his eyes jumped to Thorin, and to say that he was surprised by how haunted the King’s eyes looked would have been a vast understatement. “I will not be responsible for the death of a child, Gandalf, and especially not a girl.”

Seeing the honesty in his face, Olórin nodded. “I understand. But,” Thorin looked at him dubiously, “I doubt you understand the differences between Hobbits and Dwarves.”

“I understand that she is more fragile by far, Tharkûn.”

Olórin just raised an eyebrow at him. “Physically, yes, but where a Dwarrowdam would have fought to the last breath, no matter how futile the effort, Hobbits, and especially anyone related to Belladonna Took, will slip and hide and scurry away, just far enough to gain an advantage, any advantage, before striking with at least the precision of a Dwarf, if not the strength. Besides which,” Olórin leaned down slightly to make sure he was heard, and heard well, “If Belda does, in fact, lose her life on this Quest, you may be assured of two things. Firstly, that I know of no force under Eru that can keep a Hobbit from doing anything he or she wishes to, and second…” Grief settling over him again at the thought of Belda’s death, he lowered his voice further. “Second, if she does lose her life, you may be assured that the blame will lie entirely with me, not with you.”

Thorin didn’t look convinced, but he accepted the statement with a nod, before looking over the statues again. “These are mountain Trolls. Since when do they venture south of the Ettenmoors?”

“Not for an Age.” He met Thorin’s eyes for a moment, before remembering those awful years. “Not since a darker power ruled these lands.” Pulling himself just far enough out of the memories to look around him again, he scowled at the Trolls. “They could not have moved in daylight.”

“There must be a cave nearby.”

Olórin nodded. “We ought to ask Belda.”

Thorin stilled in the middle of moving toward the Company. “Unless Hobbits are routinely in league with creatures such as these, I fail to see the point of that.”

Moving far enough up to catch his eye, Olórin gave him a scathing glance. “If there is one thing that I am sure of in this world, she will be able to find it far more easily than any of you.” And just maybe the requisite explanation about Hobbit senses would be the first step before she would tell the Company about other Hobbit traits. He raised his voice slightly. “Belda!”

There was no answer, and a sense of foreboding edged in.

“Belladonna!” Apprehension intensifying, he moved back toward the campsite and where he’d seen her last, Thorin hot on his heels, but he saw only Dwarves looking back at him with no small measure of confusion. A twinge of panic prompted him to bellow, “KIT!”

“Here.” The single, quiet word came from the far side of the camp, or, more accurately, from the trees that bordered the clearing, where Belda stood, half-hidden behind Myrtle, with the rest of the ponies milling about behind her. As he watched, she flushed darkly and ducked her head; her mutter was barely audible, and from that distance, incomprehensible.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Fíli scanned the camp again, frowning as a certain curly head of hair was still nowhere to be seen. She and Kíli had been too busy helping to take down the spit to check on Belda, and then Balin and Glóin had drafted them into helping collect the weapons and such that had been scattered around the campsite, so by the time either of them had been able to go and talk to her, she’d been gone. Kíli had been frantic since they’d first realized they couldn’t see her, but she’d had a lifetime of experience dealing with her excitable little brother and had managed to keep him from tearing apart the camp looking for her. She’d been sure that Belda had just slipped off to help Gandalf or someone on the other side of the Trolls, but now she was starting to think that maybe he’d been right to worry.

She liked Belda. She’d never had much opportunity to socialize with other Dwarrowdams, especially ones as close to her age as Belda was. Her Amad and Thorin had wanted her to have the best education possible, to be the best Queen she could be, assuming that she didn’t take one of the multiple opportunities they were careful to give her to relinquish her claim on the throne. No Dwarf would ever force a Dwarrowdam into doing something she didn’t wish to do, and doubly so as huge a responsibility as ruling.

She never took any of their openings, though. Being Thorin’s Heir was part of who she was; she couldn’t imagine herself doing anything else, at least not happily. She didn’t begrudge her family anything, and she wouldn’t change Kíli for anything, but even so, it was different to talk to women than to men.

It was annoying, having to pretend she was male, but even so, Belda never seemed to care that she was surrounded by men. And now Belda was… Fíli hesitated to even think ‘missing’, but the longer she searched with no sign of the Halfling, the more alarmed she felt. Hearing Tharkûn call for the Burglar only made her worry worse, and even more so when he called her full name. Fíli had only heard him call her that four times: when he’d first recognized her; when he’d tried to talk her out of coming; when he’d been angry at how she’d referred to the little stone-throwing menace; and when he’d pulled her away for a private word.

All four had been the first day she’d traveled with them. She’d been ‘Belda’ since. That, as much as the raw fear in his voice, was chilling.

“KIT!”

“Here.” Fíli’s eyes snapped to the voice automatically, her relief morphing into confusion after a heartbeat; why would Belda have responded to ‘kit’? She looked well, at least, though she seemed to be slouching a bit more than usual, and she’d found all of the ponies, somehow or other. She did seem to be strangely good with the creatures, and for no particular reason, as far as Fíli could tell. But regardless, Belda was standing just inside the treeline, and as Fíli watched, she flushed and ducked her head far enough down that Fíli didn’t think anyone but Gandalf, who was tall enough to see over the ponies, and Fíli and Kíli, the only members on the Company standing on the same side of Myrtle as Belda, could see the girl. Fíli thought they were also the only members of the Company close enough to hear her mutter, “The ponies were wandering.”

Tharkûn looked as though he would say something, but Thorin spoke first. “The Trolls had a cave. Where?” Fíli frowned at him, confused. How was Belda supposed to know? But Belda just pointed, hand unwavering. Thorin didn’t look pleased, but he jerked his head in the direction she indicated. “Dwalin, Nori.”

The two of them left the group in relative silence; Thorin was speaking with Tharkûn too quietly for Fíli to hear, the other families were doing much the same, Balin was watching Belda, and Kíli moved to stand beside Fíli. He started to move toward the Hobbit, but Fíli held him gently back with a hand on his arm. The air in the clearing was tense, strangely so. Balin’s expression was forbidding as he stared at the girl, the others, including Thorin, all glanced at her every few seconds, and Belda herself still hadn’t moved other than to lower her hand.

A delighted _whoop_ came from the direction she’d indicated, and the Company moved toward it without any further reservations; it could only be Nori, and it could only be because he’d found something worth stealing.

But Fíli kept her hand on Kíli’s arm, and the two of them waited until Thorin was out of earshot before moving toward Belda. A few seconds before they’d started to move, so had she, away from them, and somehow managed to keep fifteen ponies nearly silent as they trailed behind her. Still, Fíli and Kíli weren’t half as skilled as she, and they crashed after her for a minute or two before she stopped. She kept her head down as she waited, and a glimpse of stone through the trees made Fíli realize that she’d circled around the camp to be on the opposite side of it from the Company.

Kíli moved ahead of Fíli, and reached toward Belda, but she moved back just far enough to avoid his hands. “Are you alright? Has Óin seen to you? How did you know where the cave was? How did you collect the ponies so quickly?”

She met his gaze with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and a tired tone that still tried to reassure. “I’m fine, Kíli. And the ponies like me, you know that.”

She gave Fíli a small smile when she stopped beside her brother, but Fíli’s concern only grew. “But how did you find the cave?” It wasn’t the most important issue at hand, she knew, but even so, she wanted to know. Besides which, with how oddly Belda was acting, Fíli wasn’t sure that she would give them a straight answer about anything.

As she’d half expected, Belda just deflected the question with a half-shrug, “It stinks worse than they did.”

“But how could you smell it from so far away? And how did you smell the Trolls in the first place? They weren’t even in earshot.” Fíli had made her inquiries as gently as she could, not wanting Belda to think that she was interrogating her, but the girl’s expression shuttered as Fíli spoke, and she lowered her head just a fraction, but enough that her curls bounced forward to hide her face.

Fíli exchanged a worried glance with Kíli, but Belda answered quietly enough that they had to focus entirely on her for fear of mishearing anything. “Because I could. Hobbits have excellent senses of smell, and Troll-stench is acrid enough to scent from a mile away, if the wind’s right. Everything that they touched smells like them now, including all of us, which is why the ponies tried to run away, and why I wanted to take them upwind of the cave; like I said, it reeks worse than the Trolls did.”

“But why couldn’t you tell us that before?” Eyeing her little brother, Fíli thought it would be a miracle if he hadn’t actually turned into a puppy by the end of the Quest; it really was ridiculous how infatuated he was, even if he was hiding it. But looking at him now, all pleading puppy-eyes, she just couldn’t believe that the Hobbit couldn’t see it.

But Belda actually looked up at him, if only just enough to meet his eyes, just as pleadingly as he was looking at her. “Because it’s a secret, Kíli. Hobbits hide. It’s how we survive, how we’ve survived for Ages. The less outsiders know about us, the better.”

Her voice had lowered as she went, so that she was almost inaudible at the end, and the three of them stood in silence for a few moments as her words sunk in. The mood was abruptly broken by the sound of Thorin bellowing for his Heirs, and Kíli met Fíli’s eyes almost desperately for an instant before turning to Belda again, speaking rapidly. “You won’t leave, you can’t, promise you won’t!”

She’d flinched, just perceptibly, at the word ‘leave’, clearly hurt by the implication, but nodded with a smile a tiny bit more genuinely reassuring than before. “I might move if the wind shifts, but I’ll stay in earshot. I promise.”

Thorin bellowed again, and Fíli, regretfully, tugged Kíli into turning to go. She met Belda’s eyes for a split second as she did, offering the girl all she could: a smile, a nod, and wordless thanks. As they moved through the camp, Kíli’s expression was hurt, his eyes distant, and Fíli elbowed him, guessing at his thoughts. “We haven’t told her about Khuzdûl, or that I’m a woman. She’s allowed to have her own secrets.”

Smiling ruefully, he shook his head. “I hate it when you do that.”

Mock-pompously, she stuck her chin in the air. “Too bad; it’s my job to know what you’re thinking.” He raised one impish eyebrow; she tugged on a few strands of his hair like she’d used to when they were younger. “Including when you’re plotting to put nettles in my bedroll, Kee.”

His mouth dropped, but they’d reached the cave by then, so he couldn’t reply. He and Fíli were both too busy holding their noses.

The cave was, overall, disgusting. The piles of gold and weapons were enticing, that much was true, but even so, the stench nearly made Fíli wish she’d stayed back with Belda, who’d clearly made the right decision in getting as far away as she could. There was nothing she needed there, but as she turned to leave, she felt something metal under her foot. A quick, curious inspection yielded a small blade, barely more than a dagger, and of a finer make than anything else in the cave but the swords that Thorin was inspecting. It was almost too small for her, and she nearly dropped it, but then she remembered watching Belda from the forest, how she might have gotten away with the ponies if she’d had a blade to cut the ropes, how she’d been the only person in the ensuing mêlée to be unarmed. Coming to a decision swiftly, as she’d been taught, Fíli climbed out of the cave again and strode toward where she’d left Belda.

Belda wasn’t there, but it only took Fíli a moment or two longer to realize that the wind had shifted, and a moment or two after that to locate where Belda and the ponies had wandered to. As soon as she was close enough, she offered the blade to her, hilt-first. “Here.” Belda just looked at it, wide-eyed, then up at Fíli again; looking at the blade, Fíli realized it was filthy, and hurriedly wiped it on her jacket as best she could. “Sorry, is that better?”

Hesitantly, Belda took the dagger, large enough in her hand to be a short sword, and looked blankly between it and Fíli for a moment. Seeming to understand at last, her eyes widened, and she held it out to Fíli. “No, I can’t take this.”

Fíli pushed the blade gently back toward Belda, frowning. “You need a weapon of your own, Belda, and I know you didn’t do well with the swords we gave you to try, but this is just your size, and light enough for you to use, too.” A thought occurred to her. “Unless this is a Hobbit thing? You can’t use it because it’s offensive or something?”

Immediately, Belda shook her head, and Fíli let out a small, relieved breath. “No, it’s not that, it’s just— This looks valuable, Fíli. Too valuable, and after what happened…” Belda’s shoulders slumped as she trailed off, and Fíli bent down enough to see a blank expression on the Hobbit’s face, too much like when she’d thought she’d offended her and Kíli that first day for comfort. “Well, Thorin’s not going to want me around anymore, is he.” Shaking her head again, she offered the weapon to Fíli, eyes a tiny bit watery. “I can’t accept something like this if I’m not going to be able to keep it.”

Fíli’s blood was cold; she’d forgotten that Belda’s presence on the Quest was only probationary, that with how close they were to Rivendell, Thorin could easily send her away. She shook her head sharply at the thought, regretting it when Belda flinched back slightly. “No, Belda, keep it. If nothing else, take it as a gift from me to you. If Thorin doesn’t like the fact that I claimed a trophy from the hoard and chose to do with it as I will, he’ll have to take it up with me, not you. But Belda,” she crouched down to be level with her, placing her hands comfortingly on her shoulders, “I’m going to tell you something my mother told me when she gave me my first sword: ‘true courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one’. Do you understand?”

Belda’s eyes were shining more now, but she gave Fíli a genuine, if wry, smile. “I think I do. Thank you, Fíli.”

“Something’s coming!” Sharing a glance with Belda, Fíli rushed toward Thorin’s voice, hearing a parade of ponies behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the accents are hard to understand, but like I said last chapter, I was watching Poldark when I wrote this. (^u^) If you're having troubles, it might help to remember that 'he', 'she', and 'thee' are all going to be ''ee', hard 'd's and 't's tend to be replaced with glottal stops, the 'th's in 'that', 'them', etc. tend to be omitted entirely, and the grammar is nineteenth-century-peasant-esque. Sorry. But kind of not, at the same time. If I slogged through reading Jud and Prudie's dialogue in _Ross Poldark_ , you can get through this. (But if you still can't figure out what they're saying, leave a comment and I'll give you a translation.)  
> Also, points to anyone who got the Night Court reference. Everyone else, look up “Night Court-Brent Spiner Once Again”. (^u^)  
> Since I can't really think of anything else to say, here are some ages!  
> It's T.A. 2923, which makes Belda 32-almost-33, Kíli 59-almost-60, Fíli 65 (her birthday was earlier in the year), and Thorin 177. Those are the canon ages, anyway. The rest (in my 'verse) are: Ori is 123, Nori is 173, and Dori is 214; Bofur is 164, Bombur is 179, and Bifur is 196 (I just really like Bofur being the youngest); Dwalin is also 179 and Balin is 238; Glóin is 193 and Óin is 225. I know Tolkien specifically said Thorin was the oldest of the group, but Peter Jackson obviously had other ideas and while this is not (emphatically NOT) a Bagginshield fic, I like Richard Armitage's face too much to change him. (*sigh* Mr. Thornton.)  
> Most of those don't really affect anything, but Belda, Kíli, Fíli, and Ori definitely do. Although, just to be clear, in this 'verse, Dwarves come of age at 60. Not 70 or 77 or any other number. Fíli is not underage, so I will not be adding that tag when she gets together with--  
> Um... never mind, it doesn't matter. Ignore that.  
> À demain!  
> [edit: I just realized I said Belda was 22, not 32. *bangs head against wall*]


	5. Fíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orcs or Elves, Orcs or Elves, Orcs or Elves. Well, the Orcs won't insult you, but the Elves won't kill you, at least. Still, it's a toss-up.

Fíli was only half-listening to Belda and Kíli talk; she could hear in Belda’s voice that she was still upset, but Kíli was doing his level best to cheer her up, and every now and then, he actually managed to coax a laugh from the Hobbit. Gandalf and the other Man, Radagast, had been talking for several minutes, but Fíli and the other two were far enough from them that she couldn’t hear any of their conversation. If she’d been alone, she would’ve preferred to be a bit closer, but the ponies couldn’t go any further down the hill, Belda refused to leave the ponies, Kíli refused to leave Belda, and Fíli didn’t trust her brother not to get himself killed if she wasn’t watching him.

But no, neither the conversation she could hear or the one she couldn’t were the focus of her thoughts. She was trying to think of how to convince Thorin to let Belda come along. She couldn’t argue the fact that what had happened with the Trolls had been partially because of Belda’s actions, but Belda had been trying to help her and Kíli, and besides, the Trolls might have stormed the camp anyway, if they’d had the time to realize that there were Dwarves to be eaten. Belda was probably the reason they were all alive, and absolutely the reason they still had all their ponies.

Besides which, she was almost eerily silent when she wanted to be, and when she’d been sneaking toward the Trolls, Fíli had been watching the entire time, and it had almost seemed that between one blink and the next, Belda had completely disappeared, and Fíli hadn’t caught sight of her again until she emerged by the ponies. Kíli had been tracking her the entire time, running commentary to Fíli, but even he’d lost sight of her several times, and the only reason he’d been able to find her again was that, as an archer, he was so skilled at tracking his target that he had a knack for guessing where Belda would next appear when she disappeared. Fíli had gone to get the Company when the Trolls first noticed Belda, so she hadn’t seen how, exactly, she’d been captured, but she did know that if it hadn’t been for Belda’s quick thinking, they might have all been lost.

They needed her. She’d be invaluable on the Quest, and she was a quick learner, even if she was half the weight and strength of a Dwarrowdam. She was young, true, but so was Kíli, and so was Fíli, when it came down to it. With how stealthy she was, she’d likely be able to get in and out of Erebor with Smaug none the wiser; with how clever she was, she’d likely be able to deal with any weed-eaters or Men the Company had to face; with how good she was with the ponies, they’d likely be able to bring the mounts much farther than they might have on their own. They needed her. And after what had happened in the Shire, Fíli thought that Belda probably needed them, too.

Now she just had to convince Thorin.

A pang of guilt stabbed at her, and she had to look away from Belda; she should’ve been trying to convince Thorin for weeks now, as Belda must have been. She never really tried to get Thorin’s attention, but Fíli had seen her glance at him the first time she dismounted by herself, and when she’d settled on daggers, and half a dozen other times that Fíli hadn’t been able to find a pattern in.

To be honest, she hadn’t really seen it before, but in her defense, Belda didn’t act like a Dwarrowdam. She stayed at the edges of everything unless Fíli or Kíli drew her in, and even then rarely offered any information about herself, only asked about the others. She did the work of two Dwarrow with the ponies, but Fíli wouldn’t have known that if Kíli hadn’t pointed it out to her a week after Belda’s lessons with Dwalin had begun, and she doubted anyone else had even noticed how much better tended the beasts were now. It had gotten to the point that Fíli was sure that Belda’s absence would be felt as soon as she was gone, but while she was here, it was almost too subtle to believe.

If she’d been a Dwarrowdam, how unobtrusive she was being would have been a sure sign that she didn’t want to be there, but the deadened, desolate expression she’d had when she’d tried to turn down the blade left Fíli in no doubt whatsoever that Belda did want to be part of the Company, and at least as badly as she and Kíli had, at that. It just wasn’t easy to see. But then again, Belda had said that Hobbits’ survival was literally built on secrecy and hiding. With that in mind, her behavior made much more sense. But what neither she nor the rest of the Company seemed to realize was that there was a gap, no, a chasm between their ways of thinking: Hobbits survived by hiding; Dwarves survived by being very, very visible. Ori was probably the most Hobbit-y Dwarf in the Company by that logic, and even he couldn’t help being more than a little obvious at times.

Such as now. He was sitting with his older brothers, writing something— no, he was drawing, with as focused an expression as Fíli had ever seen from any Dwarf working at his or her craft. Well, with the exception of the fact that he also had his tongue sticking out, just barely, between his lips. It was almost unbearably sweet, especially combined with his truly unfortunate hairstyle. Really, it was atrocious; more suited to a Dwarfling a quarter of his age, but then again, Dori seemed intent to treat Ori as a Dwarfling a quarter of his age, so it sort of made sense.

But still, it was unfortunate. She remembered how long his beard had been before he’d cut it, declaring that he would only let it grow again when his King did so himself, unlike his brothers. That had been the first time she’d noticed him, really. But his beard, though not as full as his brothers’, had been a lovely color, and had a bit of a wave in it, and she was sure that his hair would, too, if he would just grow it out. He drew back from the page he was working on with a satisfied smile, and, realizing that she was smiling, too, Fíli spun back around to face Kíli and Belda, who thankfully hadn’t noticed; if Belda were inclined to tease her, Fíli was at least sure that she’d be subtle. Kíli had never been one for subtlety, in any form.

His crush on a Hobbit-Burglar was rather funny, in retrospect.

Fíli’s crush on a shy scribe, by contrast, was pathetic. Nothing could happen. She was the future Queen of Erebor, and she had to think of her people first, to marry for the benefit of the King(Queen)dom. So if she could just stop staring at Ori, that would be helpful.

And thinking about him.

Gandalf and Radagast caught her eye as Tharkûn offered the shorter Man a smoke. There was something very odd about that man, and it wasn’t the fact that he had birds in his hat and insects on his tongue. When he’d shown up, shouting about ‘murder’ and ‘fire’ and such, he’d been practically vibrating, but then he’d seen Belda and gone completely still; Belda, when Fíli’d looked at her, had been much the same, but where Belda was clearly trying to figure out who or what the Man was, just like the rest of them, Radagast had looked as though he’d known exactly what he was seeing. Fíli just hadn’t been able to tell whether that was good or bad. Their… well, Fíli couldn’t think of any way to say it but mamihlapinatapai, had lasted a second, if that, then Tharkûn had greeted the Man like an old friend.

The two men were talking over a long package of some sort, possibly a blade, when Fíli looked again, but her attention was taken a moment later by the howl that sounded from somewhere to the left of them. A heartbeat later, Fíli’s attention was drawn by Kíli’s quiet, worried, “Belda?”

The Hobbit in question was nearly as grey as Gandalf’s hat, and the ponies shifted uneasily behind her as she looked toward the sound. “Was that a wolf— are there wolves out there?”

She stood, as did Kíli; Fíli was already standing, but she looked to Bofur as he spoke from a clear spot just below them, “Wolves? No, that is not a wolf.”

A snarl to the right of everyone sounded just before a huge, slavering beast of a creature pounced on Dori, swiftly cut down by Thorin; Fíli just had time to see Kíli move in front of Belda before another warg ran towards Thorin. Before it could reach him, an arrow planted itself in the beast’s shoulder and it fell; Dwalin finished it off as Fíli saw Kíli lower his bow out of the corner of her eye. The three of them moved to the edge of the level, but there was no easy way down to where the rest of the Company stood.

“Warg scouts!” Thorin scanned over the Company as he’d taught Fíli to do when there was danger, then focused on Gandalf as the Man moved to stand near Bofur and Glóin and the rest. “Which means an Orc pack is not far behind.”

“Who did you tell about your Quest? Beyond your kin?” Fíli wanted to berate Tharkûn for a mad moment; her Uncle wouldn’t blabber about something so important as this.

“No one.”

Tharkûn only looked angrier. “Who did you tell?!”

More civilly than Fíli would have responded to someone who demanded answers as Tharkûn was, Thorin reiterated, “No one, I swear.” This time, Tharkûn did seem to believe him, and Thorin lowered his voice somewhat. “What in Durin’s name is going on?”  
“You are being hunted.” A small huff sounded from next to Fíli, and she looked down to see that Belda was scowling; her expression was off, though: from someone so small and reliant on stealth, Fíli would have expected her to be terrified.

Instead, she looked downright offended, as much or more so as Dwalin.

“We have to get out of here.”

Immediately, Belda spun around and began leading the ponies down the hill, each one of them picking their steps as carefully as she did, and altogether almost ludicrously well-behaved, what with two warg corpses lying a stone’s throw away. Kíli took up the rear of the line, bow at the ready, eyes sharp, and as Dwalin clambered up to protect him, Fíli clambered down to join Thorin’s discussion. “…alf, even mounted, we can’t outrun wargs.”

The other Dwarrow were hurrying to their ponies, and Fíli almost missed Radagast’s oddly-confident offer. “I’ll draw them off.”

With more exasperation than she’d ever seen him have for anyone but Thorin, Gandalf rounded on the other Man. “These are Gundabad wargs. They will outrun you.”

Pointing behind him, Radagast was almost smiling as he moved toward Gandalf. “These are Rhosgobel rabbits.” For a split second, almost too quickly to see, Gandalf stilled; Radagast grinned. “I’d like to see them try.”

Glancing between the Man and the rabbits for a moment, Gandalf finally heaved an irritated sigh and nodded once before turning on his heel. “Belda, stay close to me!”

Belda, already leading Gandalf, Thorin, and Fíli’s ponies toward them, nodded and gave a short, low whistle; her pony immediately picked its way through the herd to her side. Thorin and Gandalf mounted easily, but Belda had always had more trouble, simply due to how petite she was, and so Fíli sped things up a tad by simply lifting the Hobbit onto her pony as she had the day they all met. But this time, almost as soon as Fíli lifted her, Belda let out a strangled whimper, and a jolt of panic spiked through Fíli as she remembered how delicate Hobbits were compared to Dwarves. As soon as Belda was safely on the pony, Fíli let go of her, moving around to see her face. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinkin—“

“Fine!” The word was more a gasp than anything else, but Belda met her eyes lucidly enough, though her expression was still pained. “It’s fine, just go!”

As Tharkûn spurred his pony forward, in the opposite direction as Radagast and his rabbits, Fíli hurried to mount and join the line; she ended up just next to Kíli, in the middle of the group.

The chase seemed to last hours, though Fíli knew it couldn’t have been more than one, altogether. But it was long enough for Fíli to notice two things: that while Radagast was certainly skilled at evading capture, he’d evidently forgotten that he was meant to draw the Orcs away from the Company; and whatever Belda’s pony did, the rest followed. But after too long and not long enough, they were cornered. Open plains surrounded them, Radagast nowhere in sight, warg-riders all around, and the long-distance fighters were running out of ammunition. Kíli had already killed half a dozen of the scum, but the others were only getting closer.

A flicker of movement caught her eye, and Fíli spurred her horse toward her brother with a desperate warning, “KÍLI!”

He looked to her first, then behind him at the warg charging toward him; it was riderless, as Kíli had already killed its Orc, but the malevolence in its eyes was no lesser for it. He grabbed for an arrow, but it was too close; Fíli could tell that he couldn’t shoot in time, that she couldn’t reach him in time. The warg snarled, prepared to leap—

 

A glowing blue blade struck the warg’s eye, hilt-first, and the beast missed Kíli by a hair’s-breadth, giving him just enough time to put an arrow in its heart. Twisting around, Fíli just had time to see Belda, white-faced, wide-eyed, and empty-handed, before a horn sounded and arrows far longer than Kíli’s began to sprout from the wargs and their riders. The Orcs tried to scatter, but one by one, they were cut down. Seeing who, exactly, was slaying them, Fíli directed her pony to flank Belda’s, and Kíli did the same on her other side. Thorin shouted for the Company to close ranks, and with the exception of Gandalf, they did; Fíli glimpsed Ori on the far side of Kíli, but wasn’t quite sure whether to wish he was closer or wish he was farther away.

Once all the Orcs were dead, which took a grand total of another thirty seconds, the Elves circled the Company, one or two of them dispatched to deal with the ones who’d been too far away for the initial attack to take them out. One of the riders rode toward Gandalf, who bowed as much as he could without dismounting.

“Lord Elrond.” Tharkûn switched to Sindarin effortlessly, and Fíli, for the first time in her life, mentally thanked her Uncle and Balin for forcing her and Kíli to sit through countless hours of lessons in the language. _“My friend!”_

“Mithrandir!” The weed-eater looked as pleased to see Gandalf as Tharkûn was to see the Elf. “When I received news of Orcs so close to our borders, I should have known you were involved.”

“Yes, I do apologize for the inconvenience.” If Tharkûn looked apologetic, Fíli was an Elf.

Thorin maneuvered his pony to the front of the Company, though one of the beasts’ ears was pointed toward Fíli and the others; she couldn’t see her Uncle’s face, but she had no doubt that he was scowling at the weed-eaters. Elrond’s gaze fell to him, and he moved a bit closer. “Hail, Thorin, son of Thrain.”

“I do not believe we have met.” Fíli had to hold back a smirk, imagining Thorin’s expression; the fact that Gandalf and Elrond had stopped on the opposite side of the circle from her meant that she could see Belda and Kíli out of the corner of her eye, which meant that she could see that Kíli was trying and failing to hold back a smirk of his own.

Elrond’s eyes flicked over the King. “You have your grandfather’s bearing.” Fíli’s almost-smirk twitched into a frown; knowing what Thror became at the end, did the Elf mean that to be an insult? “I knew Thror when he ruled under the Mountain."

“Indeed. He made no mention of you.” It was times like these that Fíli understood why Balin was so insistent that she go through so many lessons on diplomacy.

The Elf-lord’s expression was unreadable, and Fíli honestly wasn’t sure how he would react, but then Thorin’s pony shifted to the side just slightly (and without Thorin’s consent, based on how his hands twitched on the reins) and the weed-eater’s gaze flicked past him, to Belda. Abruptly, his entire bearing softened, and he actually smiled. “Belladonna Took. _I had not thought to see you again, my friend.”_

Looking like nothing so much as a trapped rabbit as the Company muttered around her, Belda replied slowly and hesitantly, _“I offer apologies, Lord Elrond, but I have lost much of my mother’s teachings.”_ If she hadn’t had a lesson in eleven years, Fíli was impressed; she’d used the wrong form of ‘apologies’ and mispronounced ‘teachings’ just slightly, but otherwise it had been perfect Sindarin.

Elrond’s eyes widened fractionally, and now some of the weed-eaters muttered. “Has it been so long? No matter. The daughter of Belladonna Took-Baggins is as welcome as her mother was, as are your companions.” There was more muttering at that, from both the Company and the weed-eaters, but then the Elf’s eyes lowered, and he exclaimed, “You are injured!” Fíli couldn’t follow his gaze, but he seemed to be looking at Belda’s foot; Fíli glanced at the foot she could see, but it didn’t look injured, just dirty. “Now you must come to Rivendell; my best healers will be at your disposal.”

Before he’d finished speaking, Belda shook her head, her pony shuffling slightly backward to be even more sandwiched between Fíli and Kíli. “I thank you, but I would rather be tended by the Company healer. But any supplies you could offer us would be gratefully received.”

Fíli tensed, watching the Elf, and barely kept herself from reaching for one of her weapons; such a statement from a Dwarf would be taken as a grave insult, and surrounded as they were, anything might get the Company captured, or worse. But Elrond just chuckled. “As particular as your mother, if more polite.” He nodded, and looked between Belda and Thorin as he spoke. “Whatever supplies you wish, whether food or medicine, shall be made available to you, and all of you are welcome to stay in Imladris for as long as you wish to.”

 

Later, Fíli wouldn’t quite remember how (by Mahal) Tharkûn had convinced Thorin to take the Elf-Lord up on the offer; nearly as soon as he had, Elrond asked Belda to ride beside him as they went, and as before, the other ponies had fallen in line behind hers, Fíli’s and Kíli’s among them. The two of them had ended up side by side directly behind the Elf and Hobbit, and as such had been in the perfect spot to listen to their conversation. She and Kíli had both been uncomfortable with it, but at the same time, the Elf’s familiarity with her mother meant that he was in a position to draw her into conversation as no one else but perhaps Gandalf could.

Belda was evasive about her time since the Winter, but she spoke of her childhood freely, and Fíli was somewhat stunned by the stories she told. From the sound of it, she’d had a perfect life until the Winter; her mother had encouraged her independence and mischief, her father had encouraged her quiet side, and altogether, (what she called) her ‘fauntling’ years had shaped her into an intelligent, independent, capable young woman.

And to be perfectly honest, the child she described didn’t really sound like her, or at least the Belda that Fíli had spent the last month with. But she could see flashes of that child as Belda chatted with the Elf, and thinking about the discrepancy only made Fíli wish that she could ride back to the Shire and thrash all the Hobbits who’d called themselves Belda’s family.

They’d hurt her, more than she let on, more than Fíli thought she meant to let on now.

Fíli had a sudden urge to grab Belda and not let go until she agreed to stay in Erebor with them after everything was over, leagues away from those wretches.

There was really only one thing that really stood out: what turned out to be a few minutes before they reached the gates of Rivendell, Belda suddenly stiffened, straightening in her saddle and looking around as though she’d heard (or smelt) something strange. “What is that?”

“You can feel it?” Elrond sounded awed, and far more surprised than Fíli would have expected for someone who had to be centuries old, if not millennia. Fíli exchanged a confused shrug with Kíli; there was nothing strange so far as she could tell.

“Yes,” Belda looked up at Elrond wide-eyed, and stammered slightly as she spoke with an enthusiasm that she rarely displayed. “Yes, it feels— feels like— well, like magic.”

A faint blush crept over her cheeks as she finished self-consciously, but Elrond, if anything, looked more impressed. “That’s exactly what it is, child. Very few are capable of perceiving my protection.”

Belda flushed a few shades darker and looked ahead again, and Fíli glanced at Kíli, not sure what to make of the information. Rivendell itself came into view a minute or two later, and even Fíli had to admit that it was beautiful, if spindly. A small turn in the trail meant that Fíli was able to see Belda’s expression for a few seconds, and Fíli’s blood chilled to see how awestruck the Hobbit looked. She couldn’t prefer the Elves, she had to stay with the Company, she had to come to Erebor with them!

Within several minutes, they reached the city itself, Belda and Óin were shown to a private chamber so that he could tend to her feet, and the rest of the Company was taken to a wing of the same building that seemed to be largely deserted; a few veiled questions were enough for the weed-eaters escorting them to inform her that they were being housed in a guest wing of the city, that anything they needed would be provided for them, and that Elrond had made arrangements for them to be treated as honored guests. Fíli wasn’t sure how much of that was lying and how much was the weed-eaters trying to feel good about themselves, but with how Elrond had reacted to Belda, there was actually a chance, if only a slim one, that they were telling the truth. And Fíli really didn’t know what to make of that.

“Is there a Fíli, son of Dís present?”

Fíli turned to see another weed-eater standing at the threshold of the room, expression delicately distasteful, as though it was horribly demeaning to be doing… whatever it was he was doing there. Thorin, unsurprisingly, glowered at the Elf. “Who wants to know?”

The great, towering ponce looked down his nose at Thorin, but answered stiffly, “His presence is requested by the Halfling.”

Belda? Fíli glanced at Kíli, seeing her confusion reflected in his eyes, and they both moved forward. “I’m here.”

Turning to them, the ponce’s eyes flicked over them both, then fixed on Kíli. “Fíli, son of Dís is requested, and only he.”

The Company grumbled, but Fíli moved to Thorin’s side, shooting a quick, quelling glare at Kíli. “I can protect myself, Uncle, and Óin is there if anything happens.”

She’d spoken quietly, but she caught a minute change in the ponce’s expression that seemed to indicate that he’d heard her anyway. Thorin looked at her for a long moment, then glared up at the weed-eater again. “Dwalin will accompany him to the door.”

The Elf looked as though he would argue for a moment, then stepped to the side and gestured with a tiny, dismissive flick of his fingers for Fíli and Dwalin to follow him. If Fíli had to guess, she would say that he’d simply tired of the argument. Yet another area in which Dwarves were the superior.

He led them through more than enough twisting corridors to be dizzying until finally taking his leave of them when Óin came into view, leaning against the wall beside the door of the room they’d left him and Belda in less than an hour prior. Dwalin grunted and settled in beside the healer to wait while Fíli opened the door just enough to slip in.

Belda was seated on a ludicrously huge patient bed, which, thankfully, had been lowered to Dwarven height somehow or other. But even so, Belda’s feet hung a solid six inches above the floor, and she just looked all the more childlike sitting there. Fíli stopped in front of her, not sure what to say. “…You called for me?”

Belda’s head was hanging, her eyes on either her feet or her knees, and she didn’t look up as she quietly responded, “I can’t get my jacket off.”

A shiver of alarm went down Fíli’s spine; was Belda trying to proposition her or something? There really wasn’t any way to turn her down without hurting her feelings, not without telling her that she was, in fact, female, but she couldn’t tell her. “I… uh… What about Óin?”

Fíli’s voice was a bit more of a squeak than she’d intended, but Belda just scoffed weakly. “I’m not exactly comfortable with a member of the opposite sex helping me undress, Fíli, even if he is a healer. And the Elves are completely out of the question.”

Fíli barely heard the latter sentence, mind a roaring blank after ‘opposite sex’. “A m… what?”

Sighing, Belda raised her head just enough to meet Fíli’s eyes through her curls. “I know you’re a woman, Fíli.” Fíli just gaped at her, and Belda lowered her head again as she continued, “I have since the first night, really, or nearly, but since everyone kept calling you a ‘he’ and a ‘son’ of Dís, I figured it was a secret for some reason.”

“The… the first…” Shaking her head, Fíli had to gather her wits just to manage “How?”

“You don’t smell like the others.”

Still somewhat stunned, Fíli just shook her head, before a thought occurred to her. “Wait, why do you need to take off your jacket if Óin’s treating your feet?”

Belda flinched slightly, and her shoulders crept up nearly to her ears. “Óin caught me wincing.”

It still wasn’t an answer, but Fíli had listened to more than enough of the younger girl’s evasive moods to know that she’d skirt around any further questions. Silently, she offered her hands, not sure what, exactly, Belda needed of her. In response, Belda extended her right hand, and Fíli helped her tug off the sleeve easily. But she didn’t move once it was off, neither to offer her left arm nor to dismiss Fíli, and Fíli felt a twinge of foreboding as she started to tug at the left shoulder. Belda tensed, but didn’t fight her, and it wasn’t until Fíli tried to pull at the hem of the sleeve that she realized what was wrong. “Belda, what happened to your arm?”

The fabric was taut around the girl’s elbow, despite the fact that it was loose everywhere else, including her right elbow. Now that she was paying attention, Fíli realized that Belda winced every time Fíli jostled her arm, and as she thought back, she realized that she hadn’t seen Belda use that arm since before she ran to get the Company.

Belda still hadn’t answered, and Fíli crouched down to try and meet her eyes. “Belda, did this happen during everything with the Trolls?” The Hobbit still avoided her gaze, and Fíli stood again with a frustrated sigh, suddenly understanding her Uncle far more than she ever had before. “I don’t know that I can get the jacket off without cutting through the sleeve.”

Instantly, Belda’s head snapped up, eyes nearly as terrified as when the two Trolls had held her. “You can’t! Please, you mustn’t!” Fíli just blinked at her, stunned by the sheer emotion in her eyes, and Belda’s filled as she calmed marginally, lowering her voice to a near whisper. “It was my father’s, Fíli. I can’t—” A few stray tears spilled as she tried to blink them away, and she shook her head. “That’s why I asked for you; Óin wanted to just cut it off, and I—”

Her voice cracked until it broke apart entirely, and she turned her face away from Fíli, shoulders shaking just enough to be noticeable. Without her entirely meaning to, Fíli’s hand crept to the beads in her mustache. They’d been her father, Sídri’s, and she’d tried to grow out her beard enough to wear them there, but for the moment, her mustache had to be enough. Once Kíli had a proper beard of his own, she’d give him one of them. The alternative was to just leave them in a drawer somewhere, or her Amad’s jewelry box, and while she knew that they’d be safe there, she couldn’t bear the thought of any part of her Adad being shut away.

Sighing, she squeezed Belda’s shoulders lightly, just enough to bring the Hobbit’s attention back to her. “You do know that this will be excruciating?”

Eyes resolute above tear-stained cheeks, Belda nodded, and fisted her free hand in the fabric on the bed. “Do it.”

Steeling herself, Fíli took hold of the end of the sleeve and pulled, gently at first, then with more pressure as needed. Impressively, Belda didn’t scream, but going by her expression, it was as agonizing as Fíli imagined it to be. Remembering times in the past where distraction had helped hugely, she asked, “So, the mustache didn’t give you any doubts, really?”

Between groans, Belda managed to speak, though her voice was strained. “Scent— doe— doesn’t lie— still w— weird-looking, though—”

The shoulder of the jacket slipped off suddenly enough to throw Fíli off-balance, and she fell back, still holding the jacket. Slightly stunned, she just blinked at Belda for a moment, seeing how pained her friend’s expression still was even as she smiled weakly, still quietly panting. Fíli chuckled as she got to her feet. “‘Weird-looking’. You’re the weird one, you don’t have any beard whatsoever.”

She looked over Belda’s shirt as she spoke; the sleeves were loose, for the most part, but they were gathered at the wrists and shoulders. When she met Belda’s eyes, she shook her head tiredly. “Just cut it off, I don’t care.” Nodding, Fíli moved forward to start undoing the buttons on the Hobbit’s waistcoat. “Besides, you do know that Dwarves are the only race who all have beards, don’t you? Elves never do, Hobbit men only do when they’re ancient, and human men do, but not human women.”

“Really?” Carefully, Fíli started to ease the vest over Belda’s shoulders, then thought better of it and slit the thin top of the left shoulder apart at the seam. “Only when they’re old?”

“Well, the Stoors have beards sometimes, but they also swim and wear boots, so they’re already strange.” The last word was a gasp as Fíli gently raised Belda’s injured arm in order to better cut through the wrist of the shirt.

“Why would swimming be strange?” After a moment’s thought, Fíli extended the split halfway up Belda’s forearm. As Belda answered, Fíli barely heard her, paralyzed by the sight of the injury.

“Most Hobbits can’t swim a stroke. Da could, but Mum always hated the water and I take after her, so I never learned. I don’t even like to go over Bucklebury Ferry.” Her elbow was hugely swollen and nearly black with bruises, and Fíli cut through the shoulder and collar of her shirt without another word, stomach churning at the very idea of asking Belda to move her arm again.

Realizing that Belda had been silent for a few seconds, Fíli searched for something to say. “So, the… if Hobbits almost never have beards, all of us must look strange to you.”

Belda chuckled slightly as Fíli worked her way down the line of buttons on her shirt. “I have to admit, it took some getting used to.”

“Unpleasant surprise, then?” Her voice was weak, but in her defense, she hadn’t expected for everywhere on Belda's torso not hidden under an odd sort of wrap-around [brassiere](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ec/4a/1c/ec4a1cc27a3a50dab905aefe00dd1235.jpg) to be nearly as bruised as her arm, or for the girl’s ribs to be starkly visible under her skin.

Or to see faded, silvery scars that looked suspiciously like the result of something at least the size of a warg sinking its teeth into her abdomen and injured arm, and claw marks that looked just as old above her mangled elbow.

“No, not unpleasant, just—” She broke off with a blush, but Fíli couldn’t focus enough to follow the topic.

“Mahal, Belda, why didn’t you say anything?” She nearly brushed her fingertips over one tooth mark that laid on top of one of the too-prominent ribs, but Belda flinched away from her hand and she let it drop.

For a long moment, Belda didn’t answer, only hung her head the same way she had when she’d told them about how she’d smelled the Troll-cave. “We h— …You have few enough medical supplies as it is; I didn’t want t—”

“No,” Fíli shook her head; yes, Belda’s injuries were worrisome, but she couldn’t get past “Why didn’t you tell us we weren’t feeding you enough?”

Belda looked up sharply, eyes wide with what looked to be pure shock before it melted away as a blush faded in, replaced with something between stubbornness and resigned chagrin. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”

Fíli nearly choked, incredulity warring with anger that she would starve herself rather than let on she needed help. “Belda, you wouldn’t have been a burden, asking for more food! We would’ve given you more— We would have made sure you had as much as you wanted!”

There was still some emotion that Fíli didn’t understand in Belda’s eyes, but she still shook her head. “I don’t want that! I don’t want you all— all doing that— going to that much trouble— and not giving up any of your own food!”

“Belda—” Fíli cut herself off when the door cracked open and Dwalin’s voice eased through it.

“Óin wants to know if his patient is ready for him yet.” The warrior sounded more bored than anything else, but Belda wilted at his voice nonetheless.

Taking a deep breath to try and let go of the perturbed ire that still simmered under her skin, Fíli glanced at Belda’s trousers. “Do you have any injuries on your legs other than your feet?” Head hanging low enough that Fíli couldn’t see any of her face, Belda just shook her head slowly, and Fíli let out a low sigh before calling over her shoulder, “He can come in now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, be honest, who saw the FílOri coming? I know I didn't really hint toward it before, but when you've got a fem!Fíli, I feel like there's only a couple possible ships, and FílOri is definitely the most popular. As far as I know, anyway.  
> So, notes: the thing where Belda (Bilbo) is the only one to notice the magic around Rivendell? Movie!canon. It's only in the extended edition, but frankly, I think it's a crime more people haven't taken advantage of the implications of that. If Bilbo could feel Rivendell's magic (which is almost definitely because of Elrond's ring of power), could he feel Lothlorien's? Could he feel Gandalf's ring if he ever used it? Could he feel the magic in Erebor (if it was magic affecting Thorin) and is that why he never fell into the gold-sickness? Is it just Bilbo, or can all Hobbits feel magic like that? In this 'verse, it's just Belda (since she's a dragon), but in another 'verse, would it be all Hobbits? Just Tooks? Just Bagginses? Just Fallohides? There are so many possibilities, and I've barely seen anyone take advantage of them. I am disappoint.  
> When the Elf (it's not Lindir; I never even came up with a name for him) leads them through the 'twisting corridors', he's absolutely trying to get them lost on purpose. Some Elves can be jerks.  
> And I put in a link to the brassiere Fíli mentions. Personally, I think with how focused Hobbits are on comfort (and the fact that they have more advanced technology than anyone else in Middle-Earth), they definitely would have figured out a more comfortable and less restrictive alternative to corsets ages ago. It wouldn't necessarily be the proper thing, but they'd have it.   
> Although, can I just say, the socio-economic structure of the Shire fascinates me? Bilbo is clearly referred to as a landowner (which, to me, would mean that he owns at least a few fields, personally employs the farmers who work them, and probably has a few tenants he's responsible for, too), but when you look at the clothing in the Shire, there's barely any difference, which means that monetary wealth (or textile or edible, for that matter) can't be the measure of status among Hobbits. It would have to be a combination of heritage and landed property.  
> For this story, that doesn't affect much, but for 'verses where B. Baggins (fem or canon) lived in Bag-End as THE Baggins of Bag-End for several years, (s)he would have a ton of experience managing resources, workers, tenants, planning ahead, playing politics, etc. Like I said, this 'verse, that doesn't apply. Most 'verses? It totally would.  
> Sorry for going off on a tangent. Lastly, yes, you will find out how she got those scars.  
> Eventually.  
> Dwalin PoV next chapter. (^u^)  
> À demain!


	6. Kíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, my favorite relationship in this fic can get started!

Kíli was still worried as Fíli rejoined the group, Óin in tow and Dwalin nowhere to be seen. As soon as she was close enough, he hissed, “Where’s Belda?”

Rolling her eyes, Fíli tugged him off to the side of the group, and only answered once she was sure none of the others were listening. “One of the weed-eaters brought a box for her just after Óin finished his examination.”

“A box?” Kíli frowned; what could the weed-eaters possibly have ready for her?

Answering his unspoken question, Fíli frowned, too. “Of her mother’s things. Apparently she left them behind the last time she visited, fifteen years ago, and they’d been keeping them safe for whenever she came to claim them.”

Her expression was enough for him to know that she shared his misgivings about the weed-eaters’ motives in being so generous to Belda, and so he turned back to the more important topic. “And Belda? How is she?”

Fíli smirked faintly. “Awfully concerned with her, aren’t you?” He glared, but he could feel his cheeks heating; her smirk fell away as she answered. “Not good. Honestly, I can’t be entirely irritated with the Mabintargân; if the box hadn’t had some of her mother’s clothes, she wouldn’t have anything to wear.”

“What does that have to do with how she is?”

As usual when he was baffled, Fíli shot him a look that seemed to imply he’d missed something painfully obvious, or interrupted before she could explain. “Because she’s in bad enough condition that I had to cut off her shirt to get it off without putting her in any more pain than she’s already in.” He’d nearly asked why, by Mahal, she’d been the one undressing her, but her last words stole all of his. “She figured out I’m a woman ages ago, by the way. But did you see her get hurt after I ran to get the Company? That’s the only time I can think that anything would have happened.”

Thinking back to those minutes, Kíli nodded numbly. “Just after you left, one of them moved to pick her up. It blocked my view until it was already holding her, but she didn’t really react at the time…” Still numb, he shook his head. “I thought she was alright; she didn’t say anything.”

Surprisingly, Fíli’s expression darkened considerably. “Yes, and I’ll be having words with her about that once she’s recovered. But…” She sighed, eyes distant and forlorn. “According to Óin, she has three cracked ribs, her feet are only bruised, but badly enough that he wouldn’t want her to put any weight on them if that were an option, and her left arm was nearly flattened.”

Kíli inhaled sharply, all the times she’d been picked up or tossed around the previous night flooding back to him. “But she’ll recover?” Fíli gave him a flat look, and his stomach flipped over.

Glancing at Óin, she spoke quietly. “He said her arm was bad enough that he wouldn’t have been able to treat it properly on the road, and that she’s tremendously lucky that the weed-eaters are such good healers.”

Kíli could only sputter for a long moment, hardly daring to even think what his sister was implying. “You— You don’t mean that he’s going to let the Mebelkhagâsactually—”

She cut him off with a glare. “According to him, our hosts are possibly the only people in Middle-Earth who could hope to heal her arm in such a way that she wouldn’t lose any function.”

Blood turning to ice, he could only stare at Fíli. Óin was one of the best healers in Ered Luin; not in that there were few superior to him, but in that he had only equals and underlings, no superiors whatsoever. If he was admitting defeat, it was a truly lost cause, and if he was actually admitting that the weed-eaters could treat her better than he could, then he truly wanted her to recover, no matter how it damaged his pride. He might have chuckled at the last, but for the most part, his mind currently consisted of nothing more than a persistent loop of images of Belda being hurt, Belda walking around like nothing was wrong with three cracked ribs, Belda screaming as Trolls put too much pressure on an arm that she might have never used properly again if they hadn’t come to Rivendell.

Fíli sighed quietly, the sound breaking him out of his thoughts, if only barely. “Óin and I tracked down Elrond and asked him to see to her, or to send his best healer. Dwalin is still with her, he’ll bring her back here once she’s taken care of. I’d’ve stayed with her, too, but I think she felt guilty about all the fuss everyone was going to.”

“‘Fuss’?!” ‘Fuss’ to be looking after an injured woman? ‘Fuss’ to be worried about a friend?

“I know.” Fíli looked impressively grim. “Like I said, words.”

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Dwalin couldn’t find anything to say. Gandalf and the leaf-lord were walking together, Dwalin and Belda behind them, both silent. She’d only torn herself from the box of her mother’s things on the Elf’s promise that it would be taken to their quarters, but even so, he could see her out of the corner of his eye, every so often, fiddling with the fabric of her dress. He’d guessed that it had been her mother’s, as well, and she and Fíli had found a ribbon somewhere or other to use as a belt, as Belda was the right height to wear it, but half as big around as her mother had evidently been. Even if it had fit, though, old, faded scars on her arms would’ve still been visible. That was why she was silent, he guessed. He was silent because of her condition.

He’d heard Óin’s diagnoses through the door, and every addition had felt like a knife in his heart. Undernourishment to the point of near-starvation. Three cracked ribs. Bruising over her entire torso. Severe bruising on her feet and legs, and minor bruising nearly everywhere else. Her left arm crushed enough to be completely unusable, and if it hadn’t been for the weed-eater’s intervention, to never be used again.

And he’d all but accused her of being selfish, of only looking out for herself.

She couldn’t have gotten those injuries after he and the rest of the Company arrived at the campsite, which meant that she’d been squeezed and stretched, she’d been stuffed into a sack and tossed to the ground like so much refuse, she’d bargained for all their lives and wontime for Gandalf to arrive, she’d fetched the ponies and ridden for miles, all with those injuries.

And he’d thought she was lazy.

She’d been in pain through all of it and never let it show but when the Trolls were holding her. Not when she’d somehow gotten to her feet while in a sack. Not when she fell after Gandalf’s theatrics. Not when she’d been walking around the camp while everyone muttered about how shiftless she’d been. Not when she’d managed to get an Elf to give them all the food, medicine, traveling supplies, and aid that the Company could wish. Not when Dwalin had stood in front of her and said things more harsh than he could believe, now.

And he’d been so, so wrong.

As they passed an alcove, he slowed, eyes flicking between the open door and the Hobbit walking beside him. “Dwalin?”

Looking back at Gandalf, Dwalin made his decision; nodding respectfully to both Tall Folk (he owed the leaf-lord at least one nod for healing Belda, after all), he put a hand on her back and gently directed her toward the room as he explained, “Miss Baggins and I need to have a private word.”

She stiffened, but he barely noticed as he closed the door behind them, only turning to face her once he was satisfied that the two men had walked on, out of earshot. But his breath caught, taken aback by the look on her face when he did; she looked as though she were about to face a rampaging Balrog, not to talk with him. She’d never been wary of him before, but, he reminded himself, he’d never treated her as he had, before.

Remorse sinking into his bones, he knelt before her, head bowed. “Miss Baggins, I apologize for my words after the Trolls. I was wrong to speak as I did.” Seconds passed with no response, and eventually he looked up to see pure bewilderment in her eyes. “Miss Baggins?”

She startled slightly, blinking, and her mouth opened and closed soundlessly for several seconds more, head shaking minutely the entire time, before she actually spoke. “You— You aren’t angry with me?”

Flinching at the reminder of his previous words, he hung his head again. “I’m angry with myself. I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. I didn’t know what you’d gone through, but that’s no excuse. I was wrong.” She still didn’t respond, and he looked up a little more quickly that time to see that her confusion hadn’t faded in the least. If anything, it’d strengthened. Thinking over how she’d been acting, he frowned; some of the confusion faded from her eyes, but he couldn’t figure out why. (But that was a lie; he just didn’t want to consider it.) “Why did you think I wanted to speak to you?”

Her confusion returned, full-force, and he saw at the edge of his vision that she was fisting her hands in her skirts. “I— I thought—”

He started to reach out before he thought, vaguely intending to take her hands in his, but froze when she flinched away. Pieces he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge noticing fell into place, and he pulled his hands slowly back, keeping his voice low and as gentle as he could manage. “Lass, did you think I was going to hurt you?” She flinched again, which was answer enough, and he fought not to let any of his anger show on his face, despite her lowering her eyes enough that he doubted she could see his expression. “Lass, I give you my word, none of us would ever lay a finger on you.”

At that, her eyes jumped to his. “You— But—” Flushing, she ducked her head, but as he was kneeling, he was just low enough to see her face anyway, see the bewilderment still on it. “You— all of you were so angry.” As gnawing horror twisted his guts into knots, he couldn’t speak, voice entirely gone. “Especially Thorin, and even K—” She winced, pain in the expression, but kept speaking before he could find any words. “You were angry with me, an—”

“No!” She flinched again, and he spared a split second to curse himself for a Orc-fodder fool before lowering his voice and trying again. “No, lass, we were angry at the Trolls, not with you.” _‘Never with you.’_ He blinked. Where had  that come from?

Even so, her eyes snapped to his again, and he was really starting to hate how confused and afraid and so, so painfully young she looked. “But I got caught.”

Her tone of voice sent chills down his spine; she didn’t sound as though she were afraid what she was saying was true, she sounded as though it was undeniably true and she was surprised that he didn’t know.

“I put the Company in danger, I nearly got everyone killed, why wouldn’t you be angry?” Barely managing to hold back a visceral response that absolutely would have scared her even more than she already was, he didn’t manage to speak before she continued, eyes lowering again, and light gathering on her lower lids. “My family was right. I’m a selfish waste of a Baggins, and all of you nearly died because of me. Why wouldn’t you ha— be angry.”

At her slip, he nearly exploded, but with a truly massive effort, tamped it down to a forceful exhale. Wishing desperately that his brother was there to advise him on the right words to use, he met her eyes again, nearly losing his composure to see that he’d scared her again, enough to set her trembling, though she seemed to be rooted to where she stood. Deliberately, he leaned back on his heels, hunching to make himselfeven a tiny bit shorter. “Miss Baggins, please allow me to explain.” He waited for her to respond before continuing, using the extra few seconds before she realized why he was waiting to choose his words.

Finally, she nodded, and he began. “For Dwarves, there is nothing more important than the health and safety of women and children. Not gold, not pride, nothing. We have few women and fewer children since Erebor fell, and we guard them fiercely. While you’ve traveled with us, you’ve been our responsibility, and so we reacted to seeing you in danger as we would if you were a Dwarf. We were somewhat angry with you for putting yourself in danger, but there isn’t a Dwarf worthy to be called a child of Mahal who wouldn’t face any danger to save any woman or child under his protection. For the most part, we were angry at the Trolls for threatening you, and we didn’t mean to make you think that it was you we were angry with. After Gandalf arrived, I was wrong to be angry with you. Even if I hadn’t been wrong about your condition, I still shouldn’t have spoken to you as I did. As for your family—”

A flood of expletives rushed to his tongue, and he bit them back sharply. A moment or two was enough to regain enough composure to at least get through the conversation before he needed to go behead something, and he exhaled slowly. “As for your family, they were wrong. They were completely, utterly wrong. ‘Selfish’ would have been to run away rather than to put yourself in harm’s way to recover our ponies, a ‘waste’ of anyone or anything would have curled up and stayed silent rather than tricking the Trolls into staying out until sunrise, you didn’t put us in danger, we chose to go into danger in order to save you, and as for the last…” After a speechless moment, he just shook his head. “Lass, the only reason any of us would ever be angry with you would be that we’re worried for you, and none of us hate you. I doubt any of us ever could.”

Now she looked speechless, and he said what he should have that morning. “You did well, lass.” As she let loose a sharp, shocked breath, she gaped at him as though he’d said that he was going to marry an Elf. With difficulty, he didn’t let his expression change, though inside he was horrified, furious, and more that he couldn’t untangle at the fact that she treated anger and condemnation as a given fact, and was so shocked to be praised. “You did make mistakes, I won’t deny that, but you also saved all our lives, and did more than we ever would have asked of you. You did well.”

As she stared at him, mouth hanging just slightly open, eyes shining, her breath hitched, and again, and again. She seemed frozen, even her hands now still, half hidden in her skirts, but visible enough for Dwalin to tell they’d relaxed into uncurling partially; as he watched her, dreading an unexpected shift in her mood, one hand twitched vaguely, and again, moving fractionally toward him before stopping almost as soon as the movement had begun. Still cautious, but faint hope warming his chest, he opened his arms just slightly. As a sob caught in her throat, she fairly lunged forward, but her arms wrapped around him so lightly that he could barely feel them. As gently as he could manage, he returned her hold, the difference in their builds enough that she may as well have been a Dwarfling half her age, or younger.

As he held her, she tightened her hold on him fractionally, now crying in earnest, and when his knees began to protest, he shifted position just enough to sit on the floor rather than kneeling; she stiffened when he moved as though she were about to pull back, but when he only adjusted his grip on her to embrace her more securely, she fairly melted against him, still crying.

The warm, if negligible, weight of her brought back a thousand memories, of comforting Fíli one night after her father’s death when Thorin was busy with Dís and Kíli, of meeting Ori when the tiny boy had literally thrown himself into Dwalin’s arms, begging him not to take away his ‘big brover’, and especially of holding Dís in the first months after Smaug attacked, when her nightmares left her shaking and silent and desperate not to let her brothers find out. She’d been ten years old to his twenty-six and barely lighter than the girl he held now.

He ended up sitting there with her—unable to find any words, but not sure he needed them anyway—for close to an hour before her tears subsided and she pulled back slightly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

Voice cracking, she cut herself off, wiping at her tears. Heart aching, he swiped his thumb gently over her cheek, and she met his gaze wide-eyed, fear lurking behind the green, along with hope, if he wasn’t just seeing what he wanted to see.

He spoke quietly, but made sure to hold her eyes all the while. “Lass, the only thing you shouldn’t have done was hide that you were injured and half-starved. We don’t know enough about Hobbits to guess when you need more than we expect.” At ‘need’, her face crumpled, and she ducked her head. Barely putting any pressure into the gesture, he chucked her under the chin. “What’s wrong, lass?”

She did lift her head, but barely enough for him to see any of her broken expression. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”

He couldn’t respond for a long moment, a black fire burning in his gut to go back to the Shire and flay everyone who’d put that thought into her head, and she buried her face in his chest while he fought to stay still. The feeling of her breath hitching, though, abruptly doused every instinct but those telling him to comfort the tiny girl who’d suffered so much purely because she didn’t want to cause someone else’s suffering. Letting out a long, slow breath, he wrapped his arms around her again—and slightly more tightly this time—one hand rising, of its own volition, to cradle the back of her head as though he could will her to never think so little of herself ever again.

“You wouldn’t have been a burden, kit.” She jolted at the nickname, and he stiffened unconsciously as he realized he’d used it, but she only nuzzled into his chest, breath hitching again. She cried silently for several minutes, and he held her for several minutes after that, until finally, his stomach growled and reminded them both of the time. She started to draw back, sniffling, but he tapped her chin gently, smiling softly at her when she met his eyes. “What do you say we track down wherever the kitchens are in this place and skip all the formal crap?”

He regretted using the (quasi-)expletive immediately, as they’d been trying to watch their language around the little lady, but she just giggled softly and wiped her eyes. “That sounds like a bloody good idea. I’m grateful to Elrond for all this, of course, but a formal dinner with everyone sounds…”

“Exhausting?” Giggling again, she nodded, and he helped her to her feet.

“Although, if you don’t mind…” He looked down at her curiously, and saw a cautiously-teasing look in her eyes. “Maybe I should do the talking?”

In another day or so, or a few weeks or months, maybe he would pretend to be offended by the idea, but with tears still drying on her cheeks and her words still hanging heavy in the air, he just grinned at her and put an arm around her shoulders in a gentle side-hug. “Aye, kit, I think that sounds good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Dwalin finally gets it!   
> Well, he still doesn't get everything, because believe me, I'm working on chapter thirty-five right now and she still hasn't told him everything she went through for the last decade, but he's on the way!   
> I know he's maybe a tiny bit ooc with how formally he's speaking, but personally, I think after over a century and a half of being Balin's brother, he would have picked up at least a little courtliness, even if he only uses it if he absolutely has to. And with how horrible he feels for the way he treated Belda, he absolutely has to.  
> But seriously, YAY PARENTAL!DWALIN!!! I've been looking forward to posting this, can you tell? And if the story summary weren't enough to clue you in, I'll just confirm, parental!Dwalin&Belda is going to be the main ship in this story. There's definitely Belda/Kíli (and also a couple other ships; I'm sure you can guess one, but there's no way you're guessing the other one until next chapter, at least), but mostly, this is Belda finding a new family.  
> (Now I've got Pirates of the Caribbean in my head. 'We'll give you a new Dad.' 'A better Dad.' 'That one.' 'That one?!')  
> Notes: so, 'mabintargân' is not a word you'll find in the Dwarrow Scholar's dictionary. I love his stuff, I use it all the time, but I just couldn't find the word I wanted. So... I might have just cobbled it together on my own. Honestly, I have no idea if I did it right and I'm a little afraid to ask, but it should mean 'they (males) who are without beards'. With Dwarven culture being what it is, I figure that's going to be one of their most insulting names for Elves. 'Weed-eater' and things like that are things Elves do. Being beardless? There's nothing anyone can do about that. The other word Kíli uses IS in the Dwarrow Scholar's dictionary; it's just listed as an 'impolite term'. Kintsukuroi rules for hair/skin apply in this 'verse, too (and pretty much every other Hobbit 'verse I write), so the way Dwalin has his hand at the back of her head? No-go unless you're close. Not quite must-be-family level no-go, since he's making sure not to actually put his hand IN her hair, but it is taboo for strangers. Also, he's calling her 'kit' because he's heard Gandalf call her that once or twice, as much as I love the idea of him just magically knowing what to call her. Nope. Not in this 'verse.  
> Can't decide whether or not to post tomorrow, since I'm posting Redamancy, but whether I do or not, there will be an update on Monday. What I'm probably going to do is update every day but Sunday (and not stress if I miss the occasional update), but I'm still deciding. If you have a preference, please let me know.  
> À bientôt!


	7. Kíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fallout (the good kind.)

To say that Kíli had been worried when the Company arrived at the dining area with no Dwalin or Belda in sight would be an understatement, and he could barely focus on any of the conversation around him. He barely tasted any of the food set before him, though he heard Fíli and Ori commenting on the high quality of the meat. He did notice when Bofur jumped up and started singing, but he couldn’t bring himself to join in; Fíli didn’t either, and he could tell that she was nearly as concerned as he was.

When he brought it up, though, she reminded him that Dwalin was with Belda, so it stood to reason that they were safe, and if they weren’t, there was no one better suited to protect her. (Part of him wanted to disagree, to say that he was the best person to protect his friend, but he knew it wasn’t true. He wasn’t entirely sure where the thought had come from, actually.)

He could see the sense in that, but it didn’t make the knot of dread in his gut any smaller. His unease only grew as they returned to their quarters to find an empty room, and when the sun set without any sign of them. So it took him somewhat by surprise, then, when just seconds after Fíli had agreed that they should go and look for them, they stepped outside to see the two in question walking towards them, Belda holding her little sword and wearing a [dress](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/6b/cd/24/6bcd243aa3ebd10660d604b00b4df018.jpg) that sent all intelligent thought straight out of Kíli’s head.

It was short, he noticed first, barely covering her knees, and flared out with every step she took. The next thing he noticed was that it was sleeveless, her arms completely bare but for the bandaging around her injured elbow. Combined, it was more bare skin than he’d ever seen on a grown woman, his mother and sister included, so perhaps that was why the plunging neckline of the dress was the third thing he noticed. It wasn’t as wide as some of the dresses he’d seen in the Shire, and therefore there wasn’t as much skin visible, but it went further down than the others he’d seen, far enough that he could see the top edge of some sort of underclothes just below a staggering amount of cleavage.

A warm dot of pressure under his chin lifted his jaw enough to close his mouth, and a hand waved in front of his eyes, breaking whatever spell had so trapped him. “You’re drooling, little brother.”

Flushing darkly, he looked at Fíli, still unable to find any words, but she just smirked at him. Heart thudding hard enough that he was sure Belda would be able to hear it, he looked back at the approaching pair, trying valiantly to keep his eyes on their heads. They were talking about something, evidently so engrossed by the conversation that they hadn’t noticed he and Fíli were there yet, and Dwalin gestured to the sword in her hand every few moments. Noticing that, of course, drew his attention to the sword, which, unfortunately for him, was at the same level as her waist as she tried whatever Dwalin had told her. She was too skinny, he could see, by Dwarven standards or Hobbits’, he guessed, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care as his eyes drifted up again.

As they drew closer, their voices grew just loud enough to catch his attention and (thankfully) snap his eyes up to their faces again, and this time, it was Belda’s expression that transfixed him. She looked completely focused on Dwalin, eyes sharp and alert and alive as he hadn’t seen since before the Trolls, and he couldn’t look away. Her eyes flicked suddenly between him and Fíli, and he felt his cheeks practically burst into flame.

Fíli must have asked something he didn’t hear, because Belda looked at her, almost glowing as she smiled broadly. “Yeah, one of the Elves found it on the way back from finishing off the Orcs, and mentioned it in passing to one of the cooks.”

Realizing he was staring again, he wrenched his eyes away from her, freezing when they met Dwalin’s. The warrior had an unreadable expression as he looked back at him, but smiled softly down at Belda a moment later. “Aye, and we’ll be finding you a set of throwing daggers in the morning.”

“Oh, good, I was meaning to bring that up when we had time.” Fíli said something after that, too, but he didn’t hear her; moonlight suddenly flooded the area, and he’d seen that the dress was green, before, but Belda glowed in the starlight, the color of the dress doing something to make her eyes that much more hypnotizing, and he didn’t come back to himself until those eyes turned on him and Fíli elbowed him sharply.

Face heating as he realized someone must have asked him something, he cleared his throat self-consciously, only daring to glance at Belda for fear of getting lost again. “Can— can you repeat that?”

Fíli snickered, but Belda just shot her a quick glare before meeting his eyes again; there was a bit of color in her cheeks, and he didn’t know whether it would be foolish or not to think that she was blushing for the same (or at least similar) reason he was. “I said, were you trying to say something?”

Was he— because he’d been staring! Not sure whether to thank Mahal for the opening or to curse him for making him have to actually form a coherent sentence, Kíli blurted out the first thing he thought of. “I thought Fíli said the weed-eater was going to fix your arm.”

Flushing even darker at letting the insult slip out, he couldn’t let himself look down at her arm as she answered; in fact, he couldn’t let himself look anywhere but at her eyes. “He did; all the actual damage has been healed, but the bruising and such will have to go down naturally, which will take a day or two, at least, and I’m supposed to keep it wrapped the entire time and avoid using it as much as possible. Same goes for my ribs, actually.”

She touched her waist with a slight wince, and he had to wrest his eyes back up to hers. Surprisingly, it was Fíli who came to his rescue. “I suppose that makes me your nursemaid, now you know.”

Belda looked timidly up at Fíli, and Kíli just wanted to make her laugh, make her smile, anything to wipe away that fear, but he didn’t dare speak; he nearly missed her words, quiet as they were. “If you don’t mind.”

Fíli grinned, looping her arm through Belda’s uninjured one. “Not in the slightest!” The two of them were slipping through the door before Kíli even realized that they were moving, and Fíli tossed back a “Goodnight, Kee!”

That left him alone with Dwalin, but the warrior just glared at him for a moment and pushed past, following the girls into the room. Kíli slumped against the wall of the corridor, staring blankly out at the city as a cool breeze swept past him. That… He’d known that she was beautiful, he’d been growing used to her beardlessness and general unDwarfish qualities for over a month, but that… He’d seen other women, more beautiful by Dwarven standards, but none of them had hit him like that.

Even the Elves, beautiful though they were, paled in comparison. Where Elven women were distant and reserved, Belda smiled often, and laughed well, when she really laughed, head thrown back, shoulders shaking, everything about her in the display. Those were the moments he loved most, when she shed whatever it was that kept her quiet and just shone, unafraid and ungainly and messy and completely, entirely herself.

And she was too skinny, worryingly so, and fragile-looking despite her scars, though he thought that perhaps the stay here, for however long it would be, might hopefully be long enough to go towards fixing that, if not fix it entirely, but even so, he wasn’t sure he’d ever known someone who pulled at him like Belda.

He didn’t think he’d ever known anyone like Belda.

He knew he’d never had a friend like Belda. She never gave him pitying looks like other Dwarves sometimes did when they didn’t think he would see; she was quiet, sometimes, but she seemed to loosen up around him; she was easy to talk to, even if he was talking nonsense, like wanting to be a hunter instead of a smith. Some of it, he thought, was probably because she wasn’t a Dwarf, that she just had a different perspective than he was used to, but as for the rest… that was just Belda.

He really wasn’t sure there was anything more he could say to describe her. She was Belda, just… just herself.

And he didn’t think he’d change her for anything.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

It was hard for Fíli to hold her laughter back until she and Belda reached the private room that had been set aside for the Hobbit, but she managed somehow. Of course, then it wasn’t until several minutes later, after she’d already helped Belda into a nightdress from the box of her mother’s things, that she stopped laughing. “Care to explain the joke?”

Belda’s bemused voice sent her laughing again, but she pulled herself together more quickly than she had before, and answer as she began to undress; she didn’t have any nightclothes, but she could at least shed more layers than usual in a private room. “Just my brother being a lovestruck fool.” A slightly choked noise drew her eyes to the Hobbit, and she laughed again to see the vivid flush on her cheeks. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice,” she teased. “He couldn’t take his eyes off you, and I mean that literally.”

“That— That doesn’t mean— He’s never seen me in a dress before!”

Fíli just laughed again. “If that had been the only thing at play, he’d have been cracking jokes about how you actually looked like a girl for once, or assuring you that you’d be the most fearsome warrior in Arda once Dwalin trained you. Instead, what did he do?” Faux-thinking, she toyed with her mustache, then pretended to remember. “That’s right, he gaped like an idiot and blushed brightly enough to illuminate the corridor by himself.” Belda shook her head again, but Fíli just poked her gently on the shoulder as she sat next to her on the bed. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you blushing, too.” Said blush returned full-force, and Belda tilted her head away from Fíli; Fíli rolled her eyes, but she was smiling at the inanity of it all. “You like him, don’t you? Even if you don’t like our beards.”

“…never said that.”

It was barely a mutter, which gave Fíli the perfect opening to frown in exaggerated confusion and raise a hand to her ear. “Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you.”

Belda’s first response was a withering glare, but Fíli didn’t let her expression change a whit, and the Hobbit’s scowl faded into an even more vivid blush after a moment or so. “I said,” she elongated the syllables; Fíli fought the urge to snicker at the unusual display of childishness, “That I never said I didn’t like your beards. Yours is especially strange since I’m even less used to women having facial hair than I am men having it, but I never said I didn’t like them.”

Fíli’s brows had crept up as Belda spoke; she had not expected that. True, she never stared or said anything about their beards, but Fíli had simply assumed that she found their beards as off-putting as they found her lack of one. It did open an interesting possibility, though; a slow grin crept over Fíli. “So, what do you think of Kíli’s beard, then?” The immediate deepening of the girl’s blush was answer enough, and Fíli laughed again. “Really? I mean, I love my brother, but he’s hardly handsome.”

Belda’s eyes snapped to hers in a strangely incredulous look, and she raised an eyebrow as she asked, “Who would you say is attractive in the Company, then?”

Instantly, the image of Ori, drawing with his tongue stuck out, rushed to the front of Fíli’s mind with the force of a battering ram, and she had to shove it away before she could answer. “Most handsome would be Glóin or Dori, although a case could be made for Dwalin, even now he’s lost so much of his hair.”

She’d turned a little away from Belda as she thought, and looked back as she realized how silent the younger girl was. If anything, Belda’s expression was more disbelieving now, and as Fíli watched, her eye began to twitch. With a snort, she shook her head like a dog shaking off water, her expression changing to something like she’d just eaten an entire lemon, or smelled Kíli’s socks. Snorts fading into laughter, she eventually just laughed, more sincerely than Fíli had seen from her in several days. “That explains so, so much.” Wiping her eyes, she glanced at Fíli sidelong, grinning. “Although, can I just say…?” Fíli lifted her brows in a silent question, not bothering to hide any of her confusion; Belda’s grin widened. “You must be so far gone for Ori!”

Later, Fíli would deny making any sort of noise, especially one so like that of a dying cat, but for the moment, she was preoccupied with how it felt as though her face had actually caught fire and the fact that Belda was laughing so hard that she nearly fell off the bed. It wasn’t until Belda’s guffaws became groans that Fíli was able to calm down enough to help her lay back on the bed. “Are you alright? Should I get Óin?”

Belda shook her head. “No, I’m fine, just— forgot about my ribs, that’s all.”

Despite her words, her breathing was still slightly ragged, and Fíli debated fetching Óin anyway. But slowly, Belda’s breathing evened out, and Fíli laid next to her, both of them staring at the ceiling. Once her friend was breathing easily again, Fíli spoke casually. “You know, you never did answer my question.”

“…What question?” Oh, she knew exactly what question, Fíli could hear it.

But the topic was too important to Fíli to waste either her breath or Belda’s on semantics. “Kíli’s not handsome.”

For a moment, there was only silence. Then, slowly, Belda exhaled. “Not to Dwarves, no.”

“To Hobbits?”

Silence again. After nearly a minute, Fíli looked over to see that Belda was bright red again, and if her expression could be trusted, she was searching for the right words. Slowly, she began. “To Hobbits… I told you that Hobbits have good senses of smell. You wouldn’t believe how much information is in a person’s scent. I can tell that you’re female just by your scent, but also that you’re fairly young, that you’re closely related to Kíli, almost as close to Thorin, and distantly related to the rest of the Company except the ‘Urs, that you have a ton of metal on you, that you’ve been riding, that you’ve been in contact with Trolls, and that you have a good heart.”

Fíli shot her a dubious glare, and she chuckled. “No, I can’t actually smell your heart, but I can smell emotions. The more often you feel one emotion, the more it’s incorporated into your natural scent, so a coward always smells afraid, a thug always smells angry, and someone who’s habitually determined, cheerful, compassionate…”

Fíli marveled at that for a moment. “You can really smell all that?”

“No.” Reflexively, Fíli smacked her arm, regretting it as soon as she realized what she’d done, but Belda just laughed. “Well, I can smell some of it, but it’s hard to explain. I’ve never had to explain it before, and it’s doubly hard since you don’t have any frame of reference for what I’m talking about. It wouldn’t make any sense if I explained it literally. But what I said is close, it’s just a bit metaphorical, that’s all. I don’t know how to explain it literally to a non-Hobbit, but…” She shrugged, wincing faintly at the motion. “Everyone in the Company has a good heart, although Thorin, Dwalin, and Dori get angry and worried more often than the rest of you.

“So, well…” Her blush had faded as she spoke about the mechanics of it, but now returned. “Even if Kíli looked different, I’d probably still be at least somewhat attracted to him, but he, um…” Impressively, she flushed darker. “He’s— um, g— good— he’s…”

After a few more seconds of incoherent stammering, Fíli teased, “Not unattractive?”

Belda snorted, some of her fluster easing away. “Not by any means.”

Stifling a snicker at her friend’s shyness, Fíli ventured, “So, if the entire Company walked through the Shire…”

Belda didn’t even try to fight her snickers. “In Hobbiton? There’d be a gaggle of giggling tweens following him everywhere. Tuckborough? He’d have three courting offers by the end of the first week. Buckland? He’d be beating them off with a stick.”

On the last, her expression faded into something almost disconsolate, and Fíli nudged her. “If it makes you feel better, by Dwarven standards, you’re weird-looking, but you’re not ugly.”

She snorted again. “Very flattering.”

Fíli poked her in retaliation before she thought, and after Belda poked her back, there was really nothing to do but to escalate into a full-fledged play-war. Fíli held back, mostly due to Belda’s injuries, but even so, it was a relief to act her age for a few minutes, without the threat of Orcs and Trolls and who-knew-what-else lurking around every corner. By the way Belda was grinning once they’d wound down, Belda now kneeling on the bed while Fíli was half-covered with pillows where she lay on the floor, Fíli guessed that she’d needed to relax as much as Fíli had, at least.

Pillows falling off of her as she sat up, Fíli grinned up at Belda. “You really do have fantastic aim, you know.”

Rolling her eyes, Belda flopped to lie on her back, and Fíli stood to start putting the pillows back on the bed. “Not anymore. I used to be able to hit a vixen at fifty paces, but I’m horribly out of practice. My mother would be appalled.”

Her tone faded again, and Fíli thought for a moment for sitting beside her. “I think your mother would be proud of you.”

Belda was silent for a moment. “…you never met her.”

“No, but I heard you and Elrond talking about her. And I think that the woman you described would be proud of you for doing all this, helping us, going on an adventure of your own.”

A quiet sniffle drew her eyes over to the Hobbit, and her heart lurched to see the tears in her eyes and the half-heartbroken, half-dead expression on her face. “But the adventure’s over.” Her voice was high and shaking, and Fíli gathered her into her arms without a second thought; despite how Belda’s tears began to spill, she didn’t sob, and her voice steadied even as her expression crumpled. “I can’t come with you after this, not unless Thorin changes his mind about me, and he won’t, not now, and I promised I wouldn’t follow you, that you’d never see me again if he didn’t let me sign the contract.”

As she hid her face in Fíli’s arm, Fíli rubbed her back gently. “We still have time. We’ll need to stay at least a day or two, maybe longer, and even if I can’t convince Uncle alone, Dwalin looked like he’d changed his mind about you, and he’s so stubborn that if he changed his mind, Balin probably will, too, after he hears Dwalin’s reasons, and the three of us are sure to convince him.” Sniffling, Belda started to say something, but cut herself off, flushing; guessing what she’d been about to say, Fíli smiled sympathetically. “Kíli would speak up for you, if he could. But he’s in the same position you are; until he comes of age in a fortnight, Thorin could easily forbid him to come to Erebor with us.”

“But what if everyone else talks him into ignoring you?”

Fíli shook her head. “No, Thorin trusts Dwalin and Balin more than anyone. If they endorse you, he’ll listen. We’ll convince him.” ‘We have to’, she finished mentally, but she saw no need to give Belda any reason to doubt. They would convince him. They would.

They would.

* * *

 

Nori

 

“Hobbit.” Nori’s voice clearly caught Belda off-guard, but she spoke quietly to Kíli and moved to the master-thief anyway. Fíli had already left to talk with Thorin about something or other, but not before explaining to the Company why, exactly, she’d spent the night with their (potential) Burglar.

“Yes, Nori?” Nori just indicated a nearby alcove, where it would be slightly more difficult, at least, for them to be overheard; it was about the best they’d find in a city built by poncy, useless weed-eaters.

“Fíli told us that you pegged her in your first few days with the Company.”

“Yes, I did.” They’d both spoken quietly enough that it would be hard for someone to eavesdrop from even a foot away, but the look in the Hobbit’s eyes fairly screamed that she knew exactly what Nori was talking about.

But she didn’t say anything further, which, of course, made it necessary for Nori to get a bit more specific. “You didn’t tell her.” The little minx just raised a brow, and Nori fought the urge to shake her. “You didn’t tell her about me. Why?”

Sighing inaudibly, the girl glanced at Kíli, then around the area to be certain no one else was in earshot. “For the same reason I didn’t tell you I knew you’re a woman. It’s not my secret to tell.”

Nori narrowed her eyes; there was no way it could be that simple. “That’s all there is to it.”

At the suspicious tone, some of the morning’s cheer drained away from the girl, leaving only the bone-deep weary melancholy that had been fairly pouring from her the entire day before. “I sincerely doubt there’s anyone who could understand the importance of secrets better than a Hobbit. I have secrets of my own. I wouldn’t want mine spilled, so I’ll keep yours, as I’d intended to keep Fíli’s until circumstances forced my hand.”

Nori clenched her jaw. “And when ‘circumstances force your hand’ into betraying my secret, as well?”

A flicker of genuine hurt moved through Belda’s eyes, followed swiftly by an anger as intense as any of Thorin’s rages; something about it raised the hair on the back of Nori’s neck, not least because it was so unexpected from someone so small and (otherwise) helpless-looking. “I could have called for you as easily as Fíli, yesterday. I called her because I know her better, yes, but also because the way all of you acted around her made it clear that the pretense was for my benefit, not the Company’s. The only people who might have discovered her if I called her were the Elves, and I can just tell them that ‘he’ and I are courting, if they suspect anything. You, however… Does anyone know besides your brothers?” She tilted her head, apparently sincerely curious. “They’re the only people I can tell know, but there might be others I haven’t noticed, I suppose. In any case, now that everyone knows I know about Fíli, I can just call for her if I need a woman’s help. There’s no risk to you.”

“You’re saying you actually thought about it that much before sending for her?” Nori couldn’t help be a little suspicious; that would be an impressive amount of forethought for an adult, let alone a girl less than half her age.

Belda just raised an eyebrow. “I snuck out of Bag-End literally under my family’s noses. I’ve raided pantries while people were in them. I’ve navigated the whole of Hobbiton without being spotted by a soul, thanks, in a large part, to the fact that I had the schedules and habits of half the town memorized. This was hardly impressive, in comparison.”

When Nori didn’t respond, the Hobbit just inclined her head to her and rejoined the Prince. Nori watched them go thoughtfully. She hadn’t thought much of Tharkûn’s proposal to find another thief, though she’d acknowledged that his logic made sense. When they’d gotten to the Shire, though, she’d been stunned at how quiet it was. Not in that there was no sound, there was actually a huge amount of conversation, laughter, sounds of life in general, but no footsteps. The Hobbits did walk, they left tracks in the dirt roads, but just naturally, they were silent in comparison to the Company.

Then they’d brought along a girl who looked only partway through her adolescence, and Nori had thought that she’d be useless compared to a grown Hobbit, but she’d proved to be as silent as the rest of her race, if not more so. She wasn’t strong, she had no experience thieving, but Nori noticed her a few times, picking herbs as they made camp and slipping them into Óin or Bombur’s bags, sneaking up behind Fíli or Kíli to help the other in one prank or another, and especially sneaking around the Troll’s campsite. Granted, Nori hadn’t seen much of that, as she’d been as busy with the fight as the rest of the Company, but the girl had moved from one side of camp to the other without making a sound, and had filched a knife from one of the Trolls as she did so. Her delaying tactics had been clumsy, but they’d worked, and she’d had the presence of mind to think of it even in that situation.

Nori had been a thief for most of her life, hiding her gender first as an extra layer of protection against discovery, then just habitually. Her family knew, a few of her associates knew, but not the general public, and certainly not Dwalin. He’d always been sharper than she outwardly gave him credit for, but he hadn’t made the connection yet, and she planned to keep it that way. As a thief, she’d learned, over decades, to think as a thief; to stick to the shadows, to be quiet when she wanted to be loud, to go over all the possibilities before she took any action. Possibly the most reckless thing she’d done in over a century was joining the Quest in the first place, but she didn’t regret it. She had no particular loyalty to Durin’s line, but her brothers did, and she was going to make ablâkul sure that they came home in one piece.

But regardless, thinking like a thief didn’t come naturally to her; it had taken decades before she could truly say that she was a thief, and not just working as one. But this not-yet-an-adult beardless slip of a girl was already displaying more natural aptitude for the craft than Nori had ever possessed. A slow smile crept over her as she stared at the empty doorway where the two younglings had disappeared a minute or two before. She hadn’t signed onto the Quest expecting to find an apprentice, but, well…

This might just work out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my favorite tropes is 'idiots in love', can you tell? Also, did I surprise anyone with Nori? It was meant to be a surprise, at least.  
> Speaking of, here's another of my favorite relationships in this story! The Belda&Nori isn't as prevalent as the Belda&Dwalin, but it is there, and it's so much fun to write, you have no idea.  
> Oh, before I forget, yes, Elrond made sure the Dwarves were served meat, since in this 'verse he has a reason to want to be on Belda's good side, at least enough to hear about what happened to Belladonna. He knows full well that if a Hobbit heard their friends were served sub-standard food, that would be IT.  
> Also, I forgot to mention last chapter, but I'm using artistic license to say that Hobbit formalwear (for women) looks like fifties'-style fit-and-flare dresses. Does it really make sense in the general setting? No. Do I care? No.  
> À bientôt!


	8. Balin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are addressed and resolved. (Mostly)

Balin rubbed his temples. As if the meeting with Elrond and subsequent news that they would have to stay in the Elf-city for another three weeks before they could read the moon-runes hadn’t given him enough of a headache, now he had Dwalin and Fíli talking over each other at him and Thorin. He couldn’t even understand them anymore, and hadn’t been able to grasp any of their meaning but that they were talking about Belda.

The thought of the Hobbit sent a shiver down his spine. He could still see her, screaming, if he so much as closed his eyes for longer than a blink. He’d nearly forgotten how young she was, until then. Clearly, they’d made a mistake in bringing her. The wild was no place for gentlefolk such as her, who could neither fight nor fend for themselves.

“ENOUGH!” Thorin’s roar jolted Balin out of his musings, and the two plaintiffs into silence. “One at a time. Dwalin.”

Dwalin returned Thorin’s nod soberly, and looked between the two of them as he bluntly spoke. “I think Belda should come with us to Erebor.” Both Thorin and Balin exclaimed, though Balin noticed that Fíli looked thrilled, but Dwalin held up his hands. “Let me explain.” The calm, mature, almost patient approach shocked Balin enough that he fell silent easily; his brother was many things, but calm wasn’t typically one of them, unless the subject was something that he cared deeply about. Balin wanted to hear what had changed Dwalin’s mind in a single day.

Thorin blustered for another few moments, but he, too, quieted. Dwalin nodded to them again, then cleared his throat quietly. “She blames herself for the Trolls. Just after Gandalf untied us, I spoke to her, and she listed all the things she’d done wrong, she took responsibility for the whole mess, gave herself none of the credit, and never once let on that she was injured. Óin gave you his report, I assume?” At their nods, he met their eyes grimly. “That girl was under no obligation to help anyone but herself. She was in no danger until she chose to go into it, to help us. She nearly got killed, yes, but she was also able to recognize her mistakes and own up to them. I’ve been training her for weeks, and I can tell you definitively that she’s a fast learner, and bright. Give her the contract and I guarantee you that she’ll be more than capable of taking care of herself by the time we reach the Mountain.”

“She’s a child!” Dwalin’s eyes snapped to Balin’s, and he had to fight not to step back from the pure, black venom in his younger brother’s eyes.

“That didn’t stop her so-called family from telling her for years that she’s a ‘selfish waste’, from teaching her to flinch away from anyone she even thinks is angry with her, and messing with her head until I might as well have told her that I was Smaug in disguise rather than that she did well to save our lives like she did.” His words hung in the air for several seconds, Balin’s stomach churning nauseatingly, the expressions on Thorin and Fíli’s faces indicating that they felt similarly. Dwalin sighed, the edge of a growl in the sound. “I could never live with myself if I let her go anywhere near that place again, or stay with people who would treat her anything close to the same way.”

“The Elves seem to like her.” Thorin’s expression was mulish, but Balin couldn’t rightly say he disagreed.

Dwalin, though… “So you would leave a young, frightened, defenseless girl with the weed-eaters? And even if they do like her, she’s not one of them. They’d treat her like a child until she was too old and gray to function, or treat her like an adult when they should’ve let her be young. They might like her, they might mean well, who knows, but they’d hurt her.”

“And she’d hate it here.” Balin’s eyes leapt to Fíli. She looked serious more often than her brother, she’d always been more solemn than him, but her expression now was as grim as Dwalin’s, at least. “She wants to stay with the Company. She’s as desperate to come along as Kíli and I were, except that she doesn’t know how to prove to you that she’d be a valuable part of the Company. I think she’s been trying to show you for weeks, actually, trying to prove that she’d be a perfect Burglar, but none of us noticed. But you didn’t see her last night. She wants to be with us, to be part of the Company, and I think she’d be a good fit.”

Thorin burst out, “She’d get herself killed!”

Balin nodded. “Aye, lass. I know you’ve grown close to the lassie, but—”

“That’s not what this is about!” Deliberately, Fíli lowered her voice, looking between each of them in turn. “She is my friend, but if I didn’t think she could handle herself, I would beg you to send her somewhere safe with Gandalf. She’s untrained and inexperienced, but she rode for bloody miles with cracked ribs, she single-handedly got the ponies down to us in time without ever letting on that she was in agony because of her arm— for Mahal’s sake, she saved Kíli’s life!”

Thorin inhaled sharply at that, but Balin thought back, to when he’d caught a blur of motion out of the corner of his eye and seen the Hobbit’s blade buy Kíli just enough time to survive.

“If you’re worried that she’s defenseless, then train her to defend herself. If you’re worried that she’ll get into trouble, assign a watch. If you’re just worried because she’s young, then you’re a hypocrite, Uncle, because she’s barely younger than Kíli and I.” Pausing just long enough to catch her breath, Fíli lowered her voice a fraction, eyes intense. “We need a Burglar, and Gandalf’s right, we can’t send Nori in, he’ll get eaten before he can blink. You weren’t there when she sneaked up to the Trolls; I was watching the entire time, and I couldn’t hear anything, I couldn’t even see her until she reached the ponies, and Kíli was there, too, and even he could barely track her!”

Now that did impress Balin. Kíli was one of the most naturally talented hunters in Ered Luin, and one of the reasons he’d earned a place in the Company was his proficiency in the area. If the girl could actually slip past his watch, Balin doubted anyone but an Elf would notice her, and if they weren’t expecting her to be there, perhaps not even an Elf. Again, the image of her being held by the Trolls returned, but this time, it was quickly followed by memories of her apparently-effortlessly tricking the Trolls into actually believing that the Company was completely inedible, of her saving Kíli, of her insisting on being treated by Óin when she must have known that the weed-eaters would be more capable.

Dwalin’s voice interrupted Balin’s thoughts, and he looked up to see his brother nodding rapidly. “And she doesn’t have the strength to be a fighter like us, but she’s quick and clever, and she has aim like you wouldn’t believe.”

“She still got caught.” Thorin fired off the words as though they were inarguable, but Balin could hear the faint note of uncertainty; evidently, Balin wasn’t the only one having second thoughts.

Fíli didn’t even hesitate before firing back, “The wind shifted. Ask Nori; I’m sure he’ll tell you that even the best thief does, occasionally, have bad luck.”

Thorin opened his mouth again, but closed it after only a moment or so, brows drawing together in a fresh scowl. Dwalin started to speak, but stopped when Thorin held up a hand. As he lowered it again, he turned away from the others, walking a few paces before he called over his shoulder, “Leave me.”

The two younger Dwarves looked to Balin and he nodded for them to obey their King, but he stayed behind when they left. He needed to think as much as Thorin did. Several minutes passed in silence as the two men thought.

Balin was torn. On one hand, the girl was barely more than a child, she’d already been grievously injured in the course of the Quest, and she’d be far safer with the Elves. But on the other hand, Dwalin was right, the Elves wouldn’t understand how to take care of a mortal, she could be trained to defend herself, and she’d publicly shown that she preferred the Company to the Elves; Fíli was right, they needed a Burglar, she’d shown more courage and resilience than Balin would have expected from any but Dwarves, and she had the makings of a capable Burglar. Gandalf insisted that Belda would be invaluable on the Quest, and she was quick and clever, as Dwalin had said, and in more than just her fighting. She had, he couldn’t deny, gotten them all caught by the Trolls, though unintentionally, but she’d been the one to save them, and more so than Gandalf.

The more Balin thought over the entire incident, the more convinced he was that if she’d stayed silent or saved her own skin rather than theirs, perhaps she might have survived, but the rest of them wouldn’t’ve.

She was young, but so was Kíli.

She was inexperienced, but so was Ori.

She was o-Khazâd, but so was Gandalf.

She was clever, more so than most of the Company.

She was quick, more so than any of them, Balin thought.

She was loyal, more so than most of Ered Luin.

Dwalin could teach her to fight, Nori could teach her to thieve, and loyalty such as she’d displayed couldn’t be taught or bought.

Part of Balin’s mind called him a heartless, feckless coward for even considering putting a girl in danger.

Part of Balin’s mind called him a soft-hearted fool for even considering not making use of the resources at his disposal.

Part of Balin’s mind was still lingering on Dwalin’s words, on the abuse he’d implied, and called for Balin to protect the girl from her family above everything else.

Part of Balin’s mind was still lingering on the sound of her screams, and called for Balin to protect the girl from any further pain, above everything, even the Quest.

Altogether, the only thing he could really say with any conviction was that the only way he’d be satisfied with either course of action would be if his King endorsed it.

“Balin. The contract.” Balin blinked at Thorin’s back for a moment before he remembered what he’d said. Thorin didn’t turn as Balin approached him, just put out a hand and waited for Balin to put the paper into his grip. Balin did so and took a seat near where he’d been thinking, and then he just watched.

He watched Thorin read the contract all the way through, and again, and again.

He watched Thorin glower at the setting sun as though it was meant to answer him.

He watched Thorin finally, slowly nod, and walk away, contract in hand.

* * *

 

Belda

 

“Better?”

Belda smiled up at Kíli. “Better.” He smiled back at her, and a shiver of warmth ran through her. Welcome warmth, really; it may have been the middle of summer, but it certainly didn’t feel like it. Or, at least, it didn’t as they ambled around the outskirts of the city where the wind could cut through her jacket all-too-easily, and the chill in the dusk air was enough that she had to huddle against his side as they walked.

Truth be told, it wasn’t quite as cold as she was making it out to be, but if she admitted that, she’d have to stay a respectable distance from him, and she liked the comforting, looming nearness of him too much to move away now. And especially since having his scent so near was unexpectedly comforting, in the middle of a city that didn’t smell like anything in particular but starlight and water. The gardens were a different story, but there weren’t nearly enough of them for Belda’s Hobbit-y tastes.

There also wasn’t enough noise, for reasons that had nothing to do with her race. It was too quiet, too reminiscent of being locked in her room for days on end while the Sackville-Bagginses swanned off to do who-knew-what. Normally, the constant, if low, chatter of the Company was reassuring, but they were evidently committed to being as annoying as possible whenever the Elves were around, and so their current cacophony was a little overwhelming.

This, though, with Kíli, was ideal. For the moment, at least. She normally enjoyed the rest of the Company’s company, and she was determined to spend as much time as possible with them before they left. But for now, she was content to walk with her ~~crush~~ friend.

“The others didn’t mean to offend you, you know. They just aren’t used t—”

“Offend?” Brow furrowed, she looked up at him, and the two of them drew to a stop.

Looking as confused as she felt, he frowned down at her. “I thought—”

“I wasn’t offended, I was just a bit—” As her brain caught up, she blinked while her confusion began to clear away. “Wait, do you mean that you’ve all thought I didn’t like loud noise this entire time?”

A hint of color rising above his beard, Kíli cleared his throat. “Y— We were trying to be polite. You mean…”

A knot of hurt she’d forgotten she had loosened with a wave of relief, and she laughed, shaking her head. “I thought you all didn’t like me! You’re all so loud when you’re alone, but then as soon as any of you see me, you clam up!”

He’d sputtered at her first words, but abruptly fell silent as she continued, eyes widening. He spoke a tiny bit faster and higher than usual as he frantically shook his head. “No, being quiet around women is a sign of respect when we don’t know them very well, and then you’re also not a Dwarf, so we thought that you’d prefer the quiet like all the Hobbits in the Shire did, and of course I— we like you, I swear!”

Unfortunately for Belda, she didn’t catch the slight slip, too preoccupied with his prior words. “The Hobbits in the Shire like a good party as much as any Dwarf, they were just nervous around all you and your weapons.”

Gradually, he joined her in her laughter, and the two of them resumed wandering. “We should’ve just asked, shouldn’t we have.”

At the self-deprecating note in his voice, she squeezed his arm lightly and pressed a little more solidly against his side. “We all should have.”

He looked down at her with a smile that was somewhere between fond and grateful, and chuckled quietly before looking ahead of them again. A moment later, he slowed to a stop. “…Where are we?”

Looking around them at the completely unfamiliar buildings, Belda had to laugh again. “I have absolutely no idea.”

After scanning the area again, Kíli nodded decisively. “This way.”

A half-hour later, Belda trotted merrily beside the glowering Dwarf. “You Durins and your senses of direction.”

She shook her head playfully; scowl melting away as he looked at her smile, Kíli teasingly nudged her. “You’re as lost as I am.”

“Want to bet?” He raised a skeptical brow, and she stared up at him with a smirk. The fading sunlight brought hints of green and brown to his normally-black eyes, like seedlings in rich soil, and her breath caught. For a moment, she didn’t think, she simply stared into his eyes and inhaled his scent, his warmth soaked into her arm and side, and some instinct, deep-buried and primally new, swept through her as lightly as a sigh. She smiled.

Laughing, she pulled him over to a nearby garden just to the side of them, sighing contentedly as she felt the earth under her feet. Reluctantly releasing his hand, she circled the few trees in the area, then the plants, taking in the angle of the leaves, the direction they’d grown in, the faint bleaching on one side of them.

If Kíli looked confused when she turned to him, he looked doubly so as she pushed him hard enough to make him either sit or fall down, and she sat next to him, tucked neatly into his side. After a moment’s hesitation, he put his arm around her, and she felt another shiver of warmth to realize that she fit perfectly under his shoulder. Trying (and failing) to calm her racing heart, she flexed her toes to dig them into the topsoil a bit. At first, she tried to look at Kíli, but the combination of his closeness, his scent surrounding her, the warmth that poured off of him, and how enticingly scratchy his beard looked made it nearly impossible for her to look at him for longer than a blink without something feral and temptingly dark slinking all through her veins, pulling her hands and fingers toward his beard and his lips and his really, truly impressive arms.

Shoving aside the (frankly speaking) inappropriate thoughts, she refocused on the earth beneath her, twisting her hands into the grass at her sides to help ground her. “So, we’re on the northern edge of the city—”

“How do you know that?” How his voice rumbled through her didn’t make it any easier to keep her hands off of him, but she held still somehow.

“The sunset, for one.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his cheeks color; smiling, she leaned her head against his chest, trying to keep from looking at him. “For another, the plants are all angled south-west—they’ll turn east in the morning, but the southern tilt is because that’s where the sun is. If I’m right, we should go…” Looking up at the sky and the stars just beginning to reveal themselves, she pointed south-south-east. “That way.”

After a moment, he started shaking, mirth filling his scent, laughing audibly a few seconds later. “I should’ve just let you lead the way from the beginning, shouldn’t I?”

Laughing herself, she grinned up at him, finding the flecks of green in his eyes even in the shadow, now that she knew they were there. “It would’ve been faster, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as entertaining.”

Slowly, their laughter faded, though neither of them looked away from the other. His expression changed slightly, but she couldn’t look at him any longer without doing something she was semi-sure she’d regret, so she laid her head on his chest again and scooted a little closer to him. Her dress was going to be more stains than skirt at this rate, but she really couldn’t bring herself to care. He adjusted his arm to wrap gently around her waist, and the two of them sat in silence for a moment before he let out a soft chuckle.

“Well, with you helping, at least we’ll probably get to Erebor in time.” He meant it to be encouraging, she knew, but his words carried a reminder that she wouldn’t be going with them to Erebor, and it washed over her with all the gentle warmth of a blizzard. His voice was slightly muffled as he spoke again, sounding somewhat panicked. “I’m sorry— I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s fine.” Even she could hear the lie in the words, but she just shook her head numbly and stood. “I’m… I’m just going to walk around.”

He stood, too, and half reached out to her. “Belda—”

“Really, Kíli, I’m fine.” But she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Our quarters are that way, I think,” she thought she could remember the courtyard just behind the building, and pointed towards it, lowering her hand quickly when she realized it was shaking. “You should be able to find your way.”

She started walking the other way before he could respond, but despite half-expecting to hear his voice, she still slowed involuntarily at the sound. “I’m sorry.”

Closing her eyes, she fought the numbness far enough back to make her words sound as sincere as they were. “It’s not your fault. I’m not angry with you.” At the moment, anger was the furthest thing from what she was feeling, but even so, nothing she felt was directed toward Kíli, save for her guilt at worrying him. “Goodnight, Kíli.”

This time, if he spoke, she didn’t hear him, and when she looked back a few minutes later, he was gone. Within a few minutes (that felt more like seconds), she’d found an alcove tucked away with a Hobbit-sized seat.

Distantly, she thought that it was probably meant to be a footstool, but it was just the right size for her to sit comfortably on it with her feet drawn up and her arms around her knees, so she didn’t really care. One side was devoted to a balcony that overlooked the main waterfalls as they cascaded down, down, out of sight. She could tell just from the sound that she was on the edge of a huge cliff, though she couldn’t see the water below, and the wind carried the familiar scents of water and starlight, but also of grass and earth and stone; the combination was at once achingly comforting and a stark reminder that for all intents and purposes, she was alone.

Kíli and Fíli were her friends, but she’d known them a month, and would probably never see them again once they left. Gandalf was her Godfather, but the last month of travel had been the longest she’d ever seen him at a time, and she had a feeling that if she added up all the time she’d spent with him before her parents’ death, it wouldn’t even equal the month. Dwalin was… she didn’t know what he was. But he was probably the member of the Company she respected most, which was saying quite a bit. More than once, she’d thought that if he’d been born a Hobbit, his soul-form would be some sort of bear.

Kíli’d be a wolf. Fíli’d be some kind of big cat, maybe a mountain lion. Ori’d probably be a rabbit, or maybe a raccoon. Nori, though, would definitely be a… a fox…

But that just made it all the worse. If they’d been Hobbits, either she’d already be part of their pack, they’d have left her by the side of the road as soon as Gandalf dealt with the Trolls, or they’d never have agreed to take her this far. Either everything would be right or she would at least know for a fact that it would never be. If they’d been Hobbits, she would know there was nothing she could do. If they’d been Hobbits, she wouldn’t be caught in a Hellish limbo, where she’d already done everything she could think of and it still wasn’t enough.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, lost in thought as silent tears dampened her skirts, but it was more than long enough for the last of the sunset to fade away, until the stars were the only illumination. With how many turns she’d taken to find her spot, she couldn’t be sure whether the moon was behind her, to her side, or in front of her, hidden by the towering cliffs, but whichever way, she couldn’t see it.

Looking up at the stars and the clouds that skidded over them, with the cliffs looming over her and the waterfalls drowning out all other sound, she felt small. She felt small and weak and helpless, and she hated it. She loathed it with every fiber of her draconic being, part of her mind screaming that she was huge, she was strong, she was fearsome—

But she was still only a Hobbit. Until her Coming of Age, she was exactly—only—how she felt. And that made it so much worse.

Guilt mixed with misery mixed with helpless rage as she sat there, and it wasn’t until Thorin’s scent drifted to her that she even realized he was there. She turned away from him as soon as she noticed, though, to try and wipe away her tears before he saw them, but gave up after a moment. She had no way to know how long he’d been standing there, so there was every chance that he already knew. And she was tired of hiding. Tired of pretending. Tired of playing along when she knew how it would end.

“If you’re going to shout at me, just get it over with.” She huffed lightly, though for the most part, she only felt numb. “I’m surprised you haven’t already, actually.”

He didn’t respond, and she stared at the waterfall again, as it crashed inevitably to the waiting drop. Her Mum had told her once that from high up, falling into water wasn’t any better than jumping onto solid ground. She hadn’t asked how she knew, but she didn’t doubt that she’d been right. It was just safer to stay low, so falling wouldn’t hurt as much.

The silence wasn’t any easier when her commander was drilling holes into the side of her head with his glare, though. She may not have been a Dwarf, and he certainly wasn’t her King, but he was the leader of the pack, and that meant that he was her commander. Didn’t mean she wouldn’t question him, not when she could pick him up with two claws— No, not yet. Not yet. For now, he was twice her size. She still wasn’t going to obey something she knew was stupid, though. But that didn’t matter, because his casting her out of the pack made perfect sense. She couldn’t argue with that. But she could say what she needed to say first.

“Hobbits don’t believe in apologies, you know.” Her Mum’s words came back to her easily, and she felt a twisted parody of a smile quirk her mouth. “‘Words are easily given and easily abandoned’. Actions, though…” Trailing off, she tugged her skirts more snugly around her knees, and sniffled. “I’ve been trying to think of how to make reparations. For—” Eyes dropping to her skirts, she forced the words out miserably. “For the Trolls. And for speaking for you when the Elves found us.” Remembering brought a guilty stab, and she winced. “I shouldn’t have accepted for the Company. It wasn’t my place.”

It wouldn’t have been her place even if she’d still had a place in the Company.

(Stubbornly, she ignored the way her instincts insisted that she was Thorin’s equal, and therefore his second-in-command.)

“The only way I can think to make reparations for the Trolls is to train with Dwalin twice as hard as before,” _‘to make up for how useless I was’_ , “which I haven’t had the opportunity to do, but the only way I can think to make reparations for overstepping as I did would be to listen to you and Dwalin and everyone twice as much. But, obviously,” her voice cracked, and she hoped desperately that he hadn’t heard. “I won’t be able to do that when you all leave Rivendell, so…” She still couldn’t bring herself to actually look at him, but she turned slightly toward him, enough that she could just make him out in the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry. I truly am.”

He still didn’t move, and she couldn’t decipher his expression without turning to face him more fully, and that was out of the question. Even with the waterfall roaring away, there was a sort of peaceful, serene, deathly quiet to Rivendell, the stillness reminding Belda of the dusty old Mathom-House, where anything unHobbitish was consigned to be slowly forgotten, gathering dust in a dim room with a visitor once a century, perhaps.

Sniffling as she pulled herself out of her thoughts once more, she wiped her eyes as unobtrusively as she could. “It’s always quiet here, have you noticed? Well, not here, obviously.” Flushing, she trailed off, the stars catching her attention again; eyes watering, she propped her chin on her knees. “Everywhere else, but even here, a little bit. Quiet enough that you can’t hear anything but your own thoughts. Quiet enough that it feels like nothing exists but your memories, like the present is only a daydre—”

Wrenching her eyes away from the sky, she bit her tongue sharply enough that a stab of pain ran through her, though it might have been from her train of thought. She’d said more than she meant to, but Dwarven hearing wasn’t as good as Hobbits’, and she’d gotten more quiet as she went on, so there was still a chance that he hadn’t heard the last bits. She hoped. It would hurt enough when they left her behind; she didn’t need to add ‘complete humiliation’ to the list.

He was still just standing there, and a pulse of (irrational, she knew) anger gave her the courage to turn to face him, though she could still barely hold his eyes. “If you aren’t here to shout at me, why are you here?”

For a few moments, he just stared at her, expression unreadable. Then he tossed something at her; taken off guard as she was, she barely snatched the packet out of the air before it fell to the ground. By the time she looked up, Thorin was gone, and she stared at the empty space for several seconds before she remembered the paper in her hands.

* * *

 

Thorin

 

It had taken Thorin the better part of an hour to find the Halfling, during which time he nearly changed his mind no less than four times. When he finally found her, he’d intended to tell her to take her time deciding, and, for a brief moment, to persuade her not to sign it, and to stay behind, where she was safe. Then he saw that she’d been crying and all his words left him. She didn’t notice him at first, though, and he’d nearly been ready to speak when she did. Then she spoke.

She’d sounded half-afraid, half-resigned, and completely miserable the entire time, and she’d sounded close to tears as she detailed how quiet she found the city. That’d given him chills. He’d felt like that more than once after Smaug’s attack, when the screams of his family and people were still ringing in his ears. Time after time, he’d woken from a nightmare, or found himself staring into the campfire, or even simply smelled smoke or burning hair, and it had been as though the present burned away to reveal that no time had passed at all, that he was still in Erebor. It had been decades since he last had to fear his memories the way he could hear that she did.

In that instant of realization, one thought had filled his mind, that he would allow her to stay with the Elves over his dead body, and had only strengthened as she turned to him, until he couldn’t bear it any longer and tossed her the contract before turning on his heel and walking away.

But as soon as she was out of sight, doubt began to creep in once again. Could he actually allow a young girl to join the Quest? Could he live with himself if something happened to her? Did he have the slightest bit of right to decide her fate, when her Godfather was within shouting distance? Could he leave her in a place that she clearly loathed?

He wrestled with the thoughts long after he found his sleeping chambers, and sleep eluded him entirely.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Dwalin scowled as he stalked through the over-large halls. It was well past sundown, and Belda still hadn’t returned to the guest chambers. Kíli hadn’t been much help, as he’d had no idea where she wandered off to after pointing him in the right direction, and the fact that Thorin was gone, too, didn’t bode well, to Dwalin’s mind. Thorin was Dwalin’s King, had been since Azanulbizar and would always be, and his friend since Erebor, but he was a right royal git at times. With how easily Belda assumed the worst of their opinions of her, Dwalin didn’t trust Thorin not to give her the wrong impression, whichever way he’d decided.

He’d better have given her the contract, though, or he and Dwalin would be having words.

Turning a corner, he almost didn’t see Belda; she was perched on a low chair, completely motionless, save for how the wind ruffled her curls, and while her hair obscured her face, she seemed to be looking toward the (large, in her small hands) packet of paper. Distantly aware that several imagessuddenly evaporated—images that he’d barely been aware of conjuring, of her falling off a cliff or wandering out of the city to be attacked—he couldn’t stop a relieved exhale.

“There you are, kit. I…” Trailing off, he frowned. Even with the waterfall abloody stone’s throw away, he hadn’t exactly spoken quietly, and she ought to have heard him from that distance. But she hadn’t reacted at all. “Kit?”

She still didn’t move, and he knelt carefully in front of her, hunching slightly in order to see her downturned face, and as he’d thought, her glistening eyes were fixed on the packet, which he could see, now, was the contract. A swell of relief, nearly as big as when he’d found her, swept through him, but it was a bit sour. She should’ve been just as relieved. So why did she look like she had after he told her that she did well?

Slowly, and as delicately as he could (which wasn’t saying much, if he was honest with himself), he brushed the curls on one side of her face back to gently tuck them behind her ear. They came loose again immediately, but she took a shuddering breath and seemed to realize that he was there, though she still didn’t look away from the contract.

She shook her head, just barely, and spoke quietly enough that he almost couldn’t hear her. “I don’t understand. He…” Dwalin’s heart clenched. What had the git done this time? “…He wants me to come?”

Involuntarily, he frowned, unease trickling through him. “Don’t you want to come?”

She shook her head again, and pure panic shot through him for an instant before she spoke. “Well, yes, of course, but I never actually thought…” Still shaking her head, she raised her eyes to his, the same confused, afraid, and so, so young expression on her face. “I don’t understand. I nearly got everyone killed. Why would he want me along?”

He was twice her size, three times her age, and had a brother who was so bloody clever it even managed to rub off on him, and somehow he still felt like a cornered rabbit. Swallowing nervously, he said the only thing he could think to. “Are Hobbits so fickle?”

She shook her head, “No—” She hesitated. “Well, yes—” With something pained in her expression, she shook her head again. “It’s more complicated than that.”

He just raised a brow at her, unwilling to give any of the wretches who’d so hurt her the benefit of the doubt.

Shivering, she sighed; he moved to sit beside her, blocking the wind as she began to speak. “We didn’t always live in the Shire. There was a time, for…” She laughed once, mirthlessly. “For a very long time, for generations, when we didn’t live anywhere. We call them the Wandering Days. And—” She cut herself off abruptly, and it was a minute or so before she spoke again. “The records say that when we left— um, where w— where we were before,” she was obviously hiding something, but he could hardly fault her for keeping her race’s secrets, “there were thousands of us, thousands upon thousands.” For a moment, she was silent, then turned and deliberately met his eyes. “When we settled in the Shire, there were a few hundred of us.”

He let out a low breath; the exodus from Erebor had been horrific, but it had lasted no more than half a century before they began to settle in Ered Luin. Of the great Kingdom of Erebor, less than a tenth of the population had survived Smaug. Another third died on the roadside. He could imagine the scene she described all too well, especially when she looked away again and softly resumed her story, eyes distant.

“Some were lost to illness, some to wolves and Orcs and things, but most… most to hunger.” Shaking her head, her tone was half-pleading, half-apologetic. “Hobbits need food. We enjoy seven meals a day, when we can get them, but even so, we need more food than the other Races. And back then…” Sadly, she shrugged. “There just wasn’t enough.”

“How long?” The words hadn’t been planned, but he regretted them all the same.

“Five hundred and fifty years.”

All his breath left him at once; she didn’t react. Their exodus still haunted many Dwarves, he knew, which was part of why so few had agreed to follow another King Under the Mountain on a Quest, but fifty years was a fraction of a lifetime. A large one, admittedly, but still. When she’d said ‘generations’, he’d expected perhaps a century, but… With a journey that long, none but Elves would live long enough to see both ends. What she was describing was an entire race with no memory of anything but the road. Children born and raised in constant danger, countless graves at the roadside, and bearing in mind that they were Hobbits, it was all the more astounding. Dwarves could survive something such as that, Men, perhaps, Elves, unfortunately, but he never would have guessed, in all his years, that Hobbits could ever prove hardy enough to persevere in such a situation. The only rational explanation was that it was a lie, and yet…

And yet the pain in her eyes was one he recognized. It was the same pain that Fíli, Kíli, and Ori shared, the pain of suffering not personally experienced, but no less real for that. “How long ago?”

“Thirteen hundred and twenty-three years.” He couldn’t keep his surprise from his expression, and she looked sidelong at him, half-smiling hollowly. “Our calendar started when we entered the Shire. By Shire-Reckoning, it’s the year 1323 now, not 2923.” Her smile faded as she looked forward again, but her expression stayed hollow. “…Hobbits have large families.”

He frowned; she’d said that the night she joined them. Why was she bringing it up now?

“Typically, at least. But…” Pain flashed across her face, and she continued only hesitantly. “During the Wandering Days… the number of children born wasn’t the same as the number of children raised.” The pain in her voice spoke of personal, or at least secondhand, experience, and he looped an arm around her before he thought. Her breath hitched, but she didn’t react otherwise. “Families were small, then, too small to survive on their own. So we formed packs.

“Like-minded Hobbits, generally, but the more varied groups were able to defend themselves in ways that the smaller couldn’t. But the only reason so many Hobbits survived to reach the Shire at all was that the pack came first.” Toward the end of the sentence, iron entered her voice, and remained. “Whether it was food, or danger, or medicine, or anything, the pack came first, no matter the cost. And anyone who endangered the pack, maliciously or stupidly, it didn’t matter, was cast out. It was the only way to survive.”

Her steely expression held for a silent moment, two, then cracked as her breath hitched and she slid sideways, off the cushion, to sit beside Dwalin. “And I endangered the pack.” Almost immediately, she closed her eyes and shook her head, her tone as though she were responding to a thought rather than anything he’d said or done. “And I know, I know, the Company isn’t a pack, it’s a Company, but—”

She shook her head again and looked up at him, half-helpless, half-pleading. “That was how we survived for generations and it’s still part of us. Deeper than—” Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment; Dwalin couldn’t help but think of Frerin at her age. “Deeper than anything. Deeper than seven meals a day, deeper than living in Hobbit-holes, deeper than the Shire.” She was still looking at him pleadingly, but there was something in her eyes that caught his attention, something reminiscent of Thorin when he was being Kingly and not at all gittish; Dwalin couldn’t fairly say it happened often, but enough for him to recognize a look of pure conviction when he saw one. “It’s part of what makes us Hobbits.”

The starlight made her eyes shine hiddenite-green and ghostly, and for a moment, Dwalin didn’t see the girl who’d clung to him only days before as though her life depended on it. He didn’t see the girl who’d flinched away from him, or the girl who’d stalked up to him and demanded he teach her to fight. He didn’t see the girl who’d nearly died to keep them safe, or the girl who’d walked away from her so-called family and never once looked back. He saw a stranger, an alien, otherworldly being who looked at him as though she were seeing something far beyond any other Races’ understanding.

“The pack comes first.”

She held his eyes steadily, and he returned the gaze with all the sobriety the moment demanded. Slowly, the stranger faded and Belda blinked at him tiredly. Leaning her head against his arm, she rubbed her eyes; his mind was a complete blank, and it took him nearly a minute to gather even a single question. “We’re your pack?”

Her breath hitched, and she made a… well, he hesitated to call it a squeak, but he really couldn’t think of anything else to call it. She straightened up, moving just far enough away that the cold rushed in to fill the space she’d left, and shrugged helplessly, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I keep telling myself you can’t be, but everything I am keeps telling me you are.” Her voice cracked enough that her words were barely comprehensible, but warmth filled Dwalin’s chest nonetheless, albeit mixed heavily with concern. Growling, she rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “It’s ridiculous: you aren’t even Hobbits, I’ve only known you all a month, you can’t be my pa—”

Her voice gave out in the middle of the word and she curled into herself slightly; tiny tremors wracked her form, and Dwalin didn’t stop to think, didn’t let himself second-guess the impulse, he just reached out and pulled her close enough for him to wrap her in his arms. She really was tiny. By Hobbit standards, perhaps she wasn’t, but again, he thought of Dís. The last time he’d held her, she’d been thirty-three, and he, Balin, Thorin, Frerin, and most of the other surviving Erebor warriors had been heading off to begin what would eventually be six long years of war against the Orcs. She’d said goodbye to the rest of her family, then, privately, she’d grabbed him, made him swear on his hair that he would bring her family home, and then just sobbed in his arms.

The next time they’d seen each other, he’d brought her the ashes of her brother, grandfather, grandmother, and his own father, her cousin.

He’d always thought of her as a sister before the war. It wasn’t until afterwards, ’til the absence of anything besides distant, sisterly affection made it clear that she’d been slowly beginning to treat him not as a brother, but more as… as something more. If he’d known then, perhaps he would have stayed behind, or made more practical promises. But as it happened, he was only left with empty arms, a knife in his heart that his sister (because she would always be his sister now) twisted with every cold rebuff, and the hollow, desolate remains of a dreamlike possibility.

But he remembered holding her for the last time. And he couldn’t help but think of those days, of his little sister, and couldn’t stop the part of his heart that murmured _‘my family, my kin’_ and tightened his arms around Belda with every beat. She wasn’t his sister, there was absolutely not ‘something more’ between them, but even so… She was young, and she needed help, and she seemed to want his. He couldn’t deny her that.

That same part of his heart whispered that he couldn’t deny her anything, but he quashed it quickly, not sure why he’d thought that.

“You can’t be my pack,” she repeated brokenly, “But then you do things like this.” With how he was holding her, not to mention how she was clutching at him, he could feel her breath hitching as her sobs returned; he’d thought that she was hard to understand before, but her renewed tears obscured her words almost entirely. “Why? Why would you— any of you— w—”

She broke down again, and this time he pulled her entirely onto his lap, cradling her as he had Dís, long ago, and Fíli and Kíli, and even Ori, once. She only held onto him more tightly, and tucked her head into his neck of her own volition; remembering how Dís had used to complain, he tried to tilt his head so that his beard wasn’t against her forehead, but she only made a wordless, mewling sort of protest, and so he just held her and didn’t think about it. “We aren’t Hobbits, kit.”

He wasn’t sure when the nickname had become so natural to say, but now he couldn’t imagine a different name for her.

“You’ve made mistakes, but you’ll learn. You’re still young.”

Still incredibly young, and for a moment, he felt as though he’d drown in the knowledge that he was at least partially responsible for her inevitable, and painful, death at the hands of Orcs or Elves or any of the thousand other dangers on their journey, not the least of which was Smaug himself. But between keeping her with him, where he could protect her with his dying breath, and abandoning her to the Elves, he knew his choice. Really, he’d long since made his choice.

Admitting it to himself at last, even if he never told a soul, he closed his eyes and slid his hand into her hair, cradling the back of her head as he started to rock, gently, from side to side. Bit by bit, her sobs eased away, and he waited until he was sure she would hear him before he spoke.

 

“You’re young, and you’re still learning. We’re not going to hold that against you, and we’re not going to condemn you for a single day’s mistakes. We’re not Hobbits, and none of us are in the Wandering Days. I’ll believe that severe punishments were needed then, but they aren’t now.” The contract had fallen out of her hands when he pulled her over, and he picked it up now to illustrate his point. “Thorin gave you this. Once you sign it, you’re part of the Company. Part of the pack.” Deliberately, he drew a fraction back and used his free hand to nudge her chin up far enough for her to meet his eyes; hers were red, her face blotchy, but he didn’t doubt she was listening carefully. “We won’t turn our backs on you. And I swear to you on my beard, you’ll never be alone again.”

For a moment, she just stared at him. Then she burst into tears.

She didn’t cry as long that time, but she was yawning once she was calm again, and Dwalin successfully convinced her to leave reading and signing the contract until the morning before walking back to the guest quarters together. At that point, though, she was stumbling more often than she was walking, and after the third time she nearly fell off a bridge, he just gave up and carried her on his back. It was surprisingly comfortable, despite the fact that her hips and ribs were sharp enough to be lethal weapons. Or, he corrected himself, not ‘comfortable’, exactly, but restful, secure. He could feel every breath she took, her arms swung against his chest with every step he took, and with her head on his shoulder, all he had to do was tilt his head a bit to lay it on hers. Every breath, every heartbeat, every step reminded him that she was safe, and that she trusted him enough to let herself be defenseless.

That might have had more to do with the fact that she didn’t see the weed-eaters as a threat, but even so, he had to blink hard to keep his composure. It had been years since anyone but his own kin trusted him so implicitly, and he couldn’t remember the last time a child (no matter how close she was to her adulthood, she was still heartbreakingly young to be so forlorn) hadn’t feared him. He’d forgotten that, forgotten how dearly he loved holding someone tiny and knowing he had his or her trust, forgotten how much the smallest measure of affection from someone so young could affect him, forgotten how he’d used to dream of having children of his own.

It had always been a fool’s dream, and far more so after Azanulbizar, but it hadn’t been until after his hundredth year that he’d truly left that hope behind. Fíli had been born a decade and a half later, but Dís had never truly trusted him since that horrible day, and he’d barely even seen her children until Kíli was old enough to have no patience for being held. So he’d kept himself busy, and he’d pushed fool’s dreams out of his mind, and he’d forgotten. And now, a confusing, alien, lonely, irrepressible girl was bringing those dreams back. She wasn’t his, not his daughter, not his blood, not even his race… but he would claim her as his own, if he could.

He wasn’t truly sure why he’d grown so fond, so quickly, but he had, and he didn’t think he’d change his mind. But no, he couldn’t. He couldn’t offer his bead to a girl he’d known a single month, and especially not to a girl who would have no idea what it would mean. No. He would wait. It would be months until they reached Erebor, which gave him plenty of time to think and rethink, and to explain to her.

He’d never had a daughter. But he would adopt her in a heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love the 'Family of Choice' trope, can you tell? *grins* Hopefully how long this chapter is makes up for how short some of the other ones are. Like I said earlier, I wrote all this first, and then went back later and divvied it up, so a lot didn't divvy evenly. It worked out for the best this time, at least.  
> So, notes: 1) It bugs me when Kíli's treated like an idiot/like he was lucky Thorin deigned to bring him along at all. Archery is hard, dudes! Add in that Dwarven baseline strength is like twice a Man's, and it only makes sense that Kíli's skills are impressive for his age. Especially since he's the only archer (in the movie; in the book, they all had at least some skill with a bow, and I can't remember if Kíli was singled out at all), and when you're traveling through the wilds, it only makes sense that you're going to be hunting as you go, and an archer is going to be at a huge advantage in that. Hence the Kíli gushing in this chapter. 2) Just wanted to point out, Dwalin is not 'three times her age'. He thinks she's 59, same as Kíli. She is not. So actually, he's more like six times her age. 3) She is lying a little bit about packs. There were packs before the Wandering Days, but she's trying to be as honest as she can without telling him any actual secrets, and that's an easy way to explain them away. 4) Look up 'hiddenite'. It's literally called that. I'm not making this up. 5) No, she's small by Hobbit standards, too. Not as far as height and build goes, but she's seriously underweight for a Hobbit. 5) No, Dwalin/Dís is not going to happen in this fic. But it almost might have, a century or so ago, and both of them are still feeling the effects of that almost. 6) Any of you who watched OUAT, did anyone but me read that interview about Charming and Emma's relationship? I don't remember most of it, but one thing that the guy who plays Charming specifically mentioned was that when Charming and Emma hug, he always puts one hand at the back of her head because that's how he held her when she was a baby. It's so sweet, I just had to put it in here!  
> À demain!


	9. Fíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Continuing Adventures Of The Dwarves In Rivendell: Will They Ever Leave?

Fíli woke slowly, still not used to the utterly ridiculous number of blankets and pillows that she was using as an airy mattress; she’d dreamed, several times, of floating along with the clouds. It was more than slightly nauseating. But no matter how strange her dreams were, she was sleeping more deeply than she ever did on the road.

Maybe that was why she’d slept through Belda’s return, and maybe that was why she didn’t notice the paper on the table until after she’d gotten dressed.

Delighted surprise stole her voice entirely away, and after glancing several times between the contract and the sleeping Hobbit, she tiptoed out of the room to leave Belda to what she was sure was much-needed sleep. It was harder than usual, though, since she felt as though she’d burst from happiness at any moment. Most of the Company was awake, though Ori and Bombur were stubbornly asleep, the former holding a pillow over his head. Thorin and Kíli were talking quietly at the other end of the room, and she picked her way across as quickly as she could. Kíli saw her coming, as he was already facing her direction, and smiled. “What’s got into you?”

Thorin turned in her direction and she broke into a run, ignoring Kíli’s question in favor of tackling their uncle in a rare hug. Even more unusually, Thorin returned the embrace, if hesitantly.

“Thank you.” Thorin just grunted in response, and Fíli had to stifle a laugh, remembering a few times he’d done the same when Dís thanked him for making sure they had enough food, or new clothes when Fíli and Kíli outgrew theirs. As she drew back, she had to smile at Kíli’s obvious confusion, and simply said, “He gave Belda the contract.”

For a moment, Kíli’s expression stayed blank; then the words seemed to sink in and he let out a shocked laugh, grinning like an idiot a moment later. If they hadn’t been in the middle of an Elven city, and if the walls hadn’t been thin enough for Belda to get woken up if they were too loud, Fíli was fairly sure he would have been bouncing off the walls. As it was, he sunk his hands into his hair as though he didn’t know what else to do with them, still with that open-mouthed grin that usually meant he was about to start laughing, and loudly.

Quickly, Fíli slammed her hands over his mouth. “She’s still asleep! If you’re going to be loud, go hunt or something!”

He pulled her hands away, mischief in his eyes, but Thorin cut him off. “She’s right. Go make a fool of yourself in private, and bring back some game.”

Sloppily, Kíli saluted him, still beaming, and barely slowed to grab his bow and quiver as he ran out of the room. A few seconds after he left, the sound of distant _whooping_ reached them, along with a few distinctly Elven exclamations and the sound of something breaking. Fíli just shook her head, grinning; maybe Belda was right, maybe Fíli was ‘gone’ for Ori, but Kíli was, without a doubt, doubly so for Belda.

Thorin groaned, though the corner of his mouth was ever-so-slightly quirked up. “That boy is going to be the death of me.” As he turned to walk away, he muttered, “I shudder to think how he’ll act when he finds a girl, if he’ll act like this over a friend.”

With that, he walked off to talk to Bifur; Fíli’s head snapped toward his retreating back as his words sunk in. He couldn’t actually… although, this was Uncle Thorin, not Balin. But still, he couldn’t really think Kíli only saw Belda as a friend… could he? Fíli opened her mouth to correct him…

…and closed it again. He’d only just agreed to let Belda come the rest of the way, and if he thought she was seducing his nephew, would he send her away? Fíli seriously doubted he would approve of a match between his nephew, the Prince, and a homeless, orphaned Hobbit, no matter how much they suited each other. And Fíli didn’t have any doubt that Belda wasn’t trying to seduce Kíli; half the time, it seemed more likely that he was trying to seduce her, though Fíli knew it was only because he’d never really had feelings for a girl before.

Crushes, yes, infatuations no less fleeting than they were superficial, but this was different. For one, this time it was mutual. For another, Fíli knew her brother better than anyone, and this was not superficial. On either side, she thought.

They cared for each other, and maybe it would work out, maybe it wouldn’t, but she wasn’t about to nip it in the bud by cluing Thorin in that they needed a chaperone. And if it did work out for them… Her gaze drifted to Ori, finally admitting defeat and getting up while Dori scolded him.

She could never have the easy relationship with Ori that Kíli had with Belda. But if it worked out for Kíli, then at least one of them could marry for love.

As they had the previous morning, a few Elves brought in breakfast for the full Company. The general attitude in Rivendell, from what Fíli could tell, was to ignore the Dwarves they were obligated to host as much as possible, which included limiting the reasons for them to leave their guest quarters. Fíli really couldn’t complain, not when she had as much desire to interact with the weed-eaters as they did with her, but she was starting to feel cramped. It was odd; Rivendell was all windows and balconies and open air, and Ered Luin was… well, it was a load of caves built into a mountain, but somehow it felt far freer than the Elven city. More alive. Less oppressive.

She was probably biased.

Even so, she didn’t much care for the idea that they’d have to stay for another two and a half weeks.

By the time she finished her breakfast, Belda still hadn’t emerged, and so Fíli loaded a tray and carried it quietly in. Even with her caution, she couldn’t be completely silent, and Belda bolted upright as soon as Fíli closed the door behind her.

The pure panic on her friend’s face, for the few seconds before she hid it, shook Fíli badly. She knew that Belda’s ‘family’ had been horrible, but sometimes it was easy to forget. Sometimes Belda smiled and laughed as though she were like any young woman. And then sometimes she would flinch at nothing so far as Fíli could tell. And then sometimes she would let something about ‘getting by on less food than this’ slip. And then sometimes she would look at Fíli or one of the others like a wild creature she hadn’t decided was hostile or not, as she was now.

But the dread was swiftly wiped away, though recognition took another heartbeat or two. Fíli smiled gently, trying her best to keep it cheerful, and moved slowly as she set the tray on the bedside table. Belda’d never reacted to her like this before, but she’d also never been woken suddenly before. All Fíli could do, really, was hope that it was something that Belda could start to leave in the past, now that she was away from the Shire.

“Morning, early-bird. I’m surprised you slept this long, although I suppose you did have a late night, and good news.” With the last, a genuine grin eased through Fíli’s heartache, and she teasingly waved the contract in Belda’s face.

Belda snatched it out of her hand, then just stared at it for a moment. Despite how tempting it was, Fíli did not crouch to meet her eyes, or lift her head, or shake her shoulder, or anything of the sort. She simply waited for Belda to respond, and in the end, it was only a few seconds before she did.

Letting loose a shuddering breath, Belda laughed softly and looked up at Fíli with a teary grin. Fíli smirked. “Forget about that?”

Still teary, Belda chuckled softly. “Wasn’t sure it really happened. Although that means—” Glancing at the blankets she’d thrown off, then at the wrinkled dress she was still wearing from the day before, her eyes went distant for a moment; when she came back to herself, her expression was somewhere between astounded, wondering, and beatific, and she huffed out a shocked laugh.

Fíli tilted her head curiously. “Anything interesting?”

At her voice, Belda looked sharply up as though she’d forgotten anyone else was in the room, then shook her head, grinning despite the tears that fell. “Nothing. Just… something I haven’t had in a long while.”

Fíli waited another moment, but when Belda declined to volunteer anything further in favor of opening the contract, Fíli just mentally shrugged and nodded to the tray. “Well, food. Anything else you’d like?”

Belda ignored her, eyes flicking over the page quickly enough that Fíli almost couldn’t believe she was actually reading it, and she had to repeat her question twice before Belda seemed to hear her. “Oh, er…” Frowning, she glanced over the room, shoulders relaxing slightly as she spotted a writing desk. “Yes, actually, you can fetch Balin.”

Fíli blinked as Belda moved to the desk, nose buried in the document again. “Now?”

After a moment’s thought, she picked up the tray and set it down on the desk, within reach while not being close enough to interfere; Belda exclaimed near-inaudibly as she pulled a quill, inkwell, and sheet of paper out of a drawer. “What? Oh, no, not now. After I’ve finished eating.”

Feeling somewhat blindsided, Fíli just stood there for a few moments; Belda weighed down the contract with a bowl of fruit and a plate of bacon and sausages, then arranged the other items to be in reach on her right. Her eyes once again fixed on the contract, she fished a piece of toast off of the tray blindly, and wrote something on the blank page as she munched away. Quietly, Fíli left her to it, and made a mental note to check if she was ready for Balin in a half-hour or so.

* * *

 

Balin

 

Balin hid a frown with the ease of two centuries of practice. Thorin was being more obtuse than he had been in a long while, Dwalin refused to say anything about the previous night other than he’d brought the Halfling back when he realized that she was half-asleep and that Thorin had given her the contract, and now the Burglar herself was summoning him to discuss the contract.

What on Arda she could find wrong with his work was anyone’s guess, to his mind, but he was confident that she would sign it, in the end.

She probably wanted more than a fourteenth. All of them had, save himself, Dwalin, and the Heirs, of course. And Nori, for some reason.

He was probably just planning to steal everything not chained down, though.

Balin paused for a scant instant, his hand on the doorknob; he’d opened the door for Dwalin, the previous night, and watched as his brother tucked the girl into bed more tenderly than he’d seen in well over a century. They’d been kind, the both of them, before Erebor fell. Then came the dragon, and then the war, and then a century of toil with little to show for it. Balin had learned to hide behind a mask of neutrality. Dwalin had hidden behind a scowl as dark as Thorin’s and a growl for anyone who dared try to see through it.

There were times, now, when Balin almost forgot the boys they’d been, forgot that there’d been a time when Dwalin’s smile was rare, but his affection was never in doubt, and for him to go a full day without giving some small display of open fondness was unheard of.

And somehow this slip of a girl had brought that side of him out again. Balin didn’t know whether to thank her for resurrecting a side of Dwalin Balin had thought dead and buried, or to pull her away from him before she inevitably broke his heart.

Dís had broken his heart a hundred and eighteen years before, and sometimes Balin thought Dwalin still wasn’t recovered. If this girl did the same…

Well. She’d learn that Dwalin wasn’t the only dangerous son of Fundin.

Steeling himself, he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. The Halfling looked over her shoulder at him immediately, and waved him over with a smile. There was a chair beside hers at the desk, and he moved to it leisurely; she had the contract open before her, several Elf-sized sheets of paper filled with comparatively minuscule handwriting, and empty plates and bowls were piled on a tray by her feet. But as he sat, he was surprised to see that there were no blots on the pages, and to recognize several places in her notes in which she quoted the contract directly.

“You wanted something?”

He sat down calmly, watching her carefully, but she only nodded genially and rearranged her papers. “Yes, a few questions about things I didn’t quite understand, andI had a few changes I wanted to suggest.”

The former mollified him slightly, but even so, he had a bit of difficulty keeping his anger out of his voice. “You found issue with the contract, then?”

She blinked at him for a moment, and he could hear nothing but genuine surprise in her voice. “No, it’s excellently written; clear, concise, clever. I’m not sure my own parents could have done better.”

He raised a brow at her. “They wrote many contracts, then?”

A frown flickered over her features for a moment, hidden almost as quickly, but there wasn’t a trace of it in her voice; he couldn’t help but be grudgingly impressed, even as he raised his guard that much more. “Da was head of the family for a few years, which meant that he oversaw any number of agreements and marriage contracts; Mum helped from time to time, but not often. And Mum could talk nearly anyone into nearly anything, without ever needing to write down a word.” She shrugged nonchalantly, but there was an edge to the motion that piqued Balin’s interest, against his will and, he suspected, despite her efforts. “I didn’t have long to learn, but I did my best to remember.”

She held his eyes steadily for a few seconds, the hint of a challenge in the green, and for a moment, Balin only thought that a true argument between her and Thorin, or her and Dwalin, would be quite the sight, and he couldn’t say who would win with any degree of certainty. But now wasn’t the time to contemplate it, and he gestured to the paper. “Then why would you need to change anything?”

She quirked an eyebrow at him, though otherwise her expression was carefully innocent. “Because this contract was written for a Dwarf, not a Hobbit.”

A flicker of embarrassment was quickly smothered; he hadn’t even thought of that when he’d been wondering at her motives. But she’d ask for more money. It was only natural. “I believe you had questions?”

They discussed her notes for close to an hour, and again, he’d been surprised by how efficiently she’d ordered her thoughts. Most of her changes were things to do with being a different race: the minimum amount of food that would keep her from starving was a hair over double what a Dwarf would need; she wasn’t nearly strong enough to handle a few things listed in the general duties, but she volunteered to take sole responsibility for the ponies, to help whoever was hunting and cooking, and to be the go-to scout, if one were needed; she also tried to argue away the clause guaranteeing her a plaque if she were to be killed by Smaug (she was insistent, but Balin, despite his astonishment, was able to stand his ground in, at the very least, an official mention in any and all documentation of the Quest).

But, to Balin’s bewilderment, she didn’t say a word about the fact that she was implicitly required to do her utmost to eliminate Smaug, though she did dispute the ‘weaponry not provided’ clause, and she absolutely refused to remove the clause absolving the Company of any harm she might come to on the journey.

Finally, they’d exhausted all but one of her pages, this one nearly empty. “Would those be your questions, then?”

“Yeah, I really only had two.” She pulled the page in question toward her, and he just had time to see that the top entry was among the segments she’d quoted directly from the contract; brow furrowed, she read it off. “‘…and all pleas shall be pleaded…’, et cetera, ‘…in the Dwarvish Tongue’.” Even as his blood ran cold, she met his eyes curiously. “What’s the ‘Dwarvish Tongue’?”

Cursing himself for a Mahal-forsaken fool, he scrambled for an explanation; he’d changed one or two elements of the contract when Tharkûn finally told them that he didn’t have a Dwarf in mind for the job, but some sections were so basic that he’d barely even skimmed through them. Clearly, he should have read through it more carefully; no matter how fond Dwalin and the Heirs were of the girl, she wasn’t a Dwarf, and Khuzdûl was a secret as sacred as it was dear. Bifur’s inability to speak Westron was inconvenient, but easily explained away; this was nearly incontrovertible. “A dialect of Rohirric. It’s used in Dwarven colonies and such when private discussion is needed; I’m sure we can waive that, seeing as how you’re not a Dwarf.”

Her brows had shot up at the mention of Rohirric, and the light in her eyes unnerved him. “I’ve heard a few words of Rohirric before, from Mum when she was telling me where she’d wandered. Maybe you can teach me a bit!”

Hurriedly, he shook his head. “No, lass, it’s not much like Rohirric, anymore. And the pronunciations are very different. I’m afraid it wouldn’t be any help to you.”

Lowering her eyes, her shoulders dropped a fraction, but she rallied quickly. “Well, then the only question I have left is this: can I store my share of the treasure in Erebor?”

Balin blinked at her. “…Excuse me?”

He must have heard her wrong.

“Well, it’s just that the way all of you talk about the ‘treasures of Erebor’, it sounds as though there’s literally mountains of it. And a fourteenth is a huge percentage, unless I get less than a fourteenth, of course,” she amended, “which I wouldn’t mind, really, but even so, anything more than a chest of gold is going to be a misery to transport, so could I just withdraw what I need and leave the rest in Erebor for safekeeping?”

She blinked innocently at him, head tilted. It was a trick, it had to be. ‘Wouldn’t mind less than a fourteenth’, really. She couldn’t even lie competently.

When he didn’t answer, she frowned slightly, a faint blush rising on her cheeks. “Or would that be a problem? I won’t need that much money, that’s all.”

“You’re asking for less money?” He was mishearing her, that had to be it.

But she bobbed her head indecisively. “Well, not necessarily; I wouldn’t mind knowing I had enough money to get by set aside, but it seems as though I’d be tempting fate to carry it all with me.”

“Carrying it back to the Shire?”

He only meant to clarify, but she recoiled as though he’d offered to cut off her hand for her. “NO! I’m never going back there again, if I can help it! I’m not even sure I’ll be coming back over the Misty Mountains after everything!”

Seeming to realize how her voice had risen, she looked away, blushing; he had to struggle not to let any incredulity into his expression or voice. “Do you plan to stay in Erebor, then?”

Abruptly, the tiny fidgeting he hadn’t consciously been aware of stopped, and for a few heartbeats, she looked no more alive than a statue; she didn’t breathe, she didn’t blink. Eyes shining, her words drifted out on a quiet exhalation, but the fearful hope was easy enough to recognize, after a lifetime of feeling it.

“Maybe. I ho— I don’t know.” Blinking rapidly, she turned her head further to the side, hiding her expression, and he had to strain to hear her near-inaudibly repeat, “I don’t know.” Sniffling, she turned to face him again, expression neutral, but anyone could have seen that her cheery tone was a sham. “I’ve never even left the Shire before, let alone gone to the other side of the world, so I’ve no idea where I’ll want to live. But I’ll need money for a house in any case, whether to build or buy, and then for a garden, and food until the garden’s big enough to support me…” Her considering expression eased into something far more childish, and far more genuinely happy, he thought. “And a library. The biggest library in Arda,” she laughed.

For a moment, he could only stare at her. In over a month of traveling with her, he’d never seen such a carefree look in her eyes. Granted, he didn’t spend a quarter of the time with her as the Heirs did, but even so. It made her look even younger, and threw her usual ‘relaxed’ expression into stark, illuminating relief. Just how often was she only foxing happiness? Had he ever before even seen half as much—

The answer came swiftly, and yet seemed to creep over him with the subtlety of a winter chill. He had seen her genuinely happy before, though not often, not to this extent, and never out of the company of Fíli and Kíli.

Of course, that was assuming that her present happiness was genuine, which he had no way of verifying. She’d have to be a consummate liar, but it was possible.

Shaking her head, she calmed, though there was still an ease in her expression that he wasn’t used to seeing. “Anyway, like I said, I wouldn’t mind having money set by, but I’d hate to think it was gathering dust when Thorin, or Fíli, or you, or whoever’ll be in charge of the Treasury once everything’s settled, could put it to use. Actually, could it be an emergency fund or something?”

He blinked at her. “A what?”

“You don’t have those?” She tilted her head, but the surprise in her expression faded quickly. “Well, I suppose it was only put into effect after the Winter. Anyway, in the Shire, the Thain has an emergency fund set aside to buy food and such in case of another hard winter—or a famine, though we’ve never had one in thirteen-hundred years—and most of the wealthier families contributed a share or two, as well. So could my share be put aside that way? So if there were a famine, or a plague, or if refugees came streaming in from somewhere or other, whoever was in charge could use it to procure food, or medicine, or shelter? And then it would still technically be my money, so I could still withdraw what I needed, if I needed anything.”

For a moment or two, she just looked at him expectantly; Balin realized that his mouth was hanging open and shut it with a _snap_ , but couldn’t keep his skepticism out of his voice. “You’d trek across Arda, face Trolls, Orcs, and who-knows-what-else, including a dragon, and ask for nothing more than the means for a modest living?”

It was a trick. It had to be.

As though she’d heard his thoughts, she shook her head, brow furrowed. “No, I— I did mention the library, didn’t I?”

It took another few seconds of silence before Balin was satisfied that she would say nothing further, though he still couldn’t believe it. Slowly, he shook his head. “…You are not a Dwarf.”

Raising a single brow, she looked at him rather as though he’d said he intended to take up standing on his head. “You’re just noticing now?”

Despite himself, he chuckled a bit at that; still, though, he regarded her thoughtfully. “Just beginning to see the differences between us, I think.”

Could she be telling the truth? It didn’t make the slightest bit of sense, and yet… no Dwarf would even pretend not to want whatever he could lay his hands on.

Brow already raised, her expression couldn’t change much, but it did twitch. “Is gold so important to Dwarves?”

The question seemed genuine, but he answered thoughtfully, choosing his words with care. “You could say that. You could also say that the vast majority of people of any race would consider it so.”

A flicker of confusion raced over her face, followed swiftly by hurt, before being replaced by cautious amusement. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, but in this, at least, I’m a very ordinary Hobbit.”

Now Balin raised his brow. “You mean to say that none of your people have any love of gold?”

She nodded decisively. “Yes. Well,” she flushed slightly as she backtracked, “no, there are greedy Hobbits, of course, but in my experience, the covetous of us tend to want power and influence and adoration far more than money, and wealth is hardly an indication of such. My mother’s family is far more wealthy than my father’s, but I doubt there’s a Hobbit in Hobbiton who’d aspire to be like them in any way, shape, or form. Gold is…” Hesitating, she shook her head, then shrugged helplessly at him. “It’s gold. You can’t eat it, smell it, wear it, you can’t talk to it, you certainly can’t read it— It’s not half as pleasant to look at as a good garden, it’s not half as comfortable as a good couch or bed or armchair, it’s not good for anything in and of itself, really, but for acquiring more useful things.”

Balin was gaping at her again, he could tell, but he could barely move enough to close his mouth. She couldn’t be telling the truth, she had to be lying, because if she wasn’t, then that was the most unselfish, altruistic statement he’d ever heard in nearly two and a half centuries of life. She had to be lying, because if she wasn’t, that meant that there was an entire race of people who would have been far freer with their generosity than Erebor’s closest so-called allies. She had to be lying, because if she wasn’t… if she wasn’t, that meant that he was completely and utterly wrong about her.

“Then what do Hobbits value, if not gold?” It was his voice, but he heard the words as if from a distance; he watched her intently anyway.

Thoughtfully, her eyes lowered, and her voice was musing. “It depends on who you ask, to a certain degree, but… I’d say that very few would argue against safety, after the Winter. Food would certainly be a contender, as would comfort and cheer. But personally, and I think universally, deep down, family.” Sorrow crept into her eyes, but there was warmth, as well. “We can get by without as much food as we’d like, comfort and safety are never really assured, though they’re all the more precious for that, and cheer can be found even in the worst of times. But without family, whether by blood or choice, we’re nothing. Mum was the most solitary Hobbit I’ve ever known, and half her adventures were for the sole purpose of visiting dear friends.” She smiled suddenly, crinkled eyes shining, voice thick. “With a good bit of mischief on the way, and bringingback a book or two for Da.”

Sniffling, she wiped her cheeks, and he had to avert his gaze when his heart gave a strident pang. More roughly than he might have normally, he pushed the contract toward her, followed by the quill. “Sign. I’ll have Thorin do the same after he approves the necessary changes.”

And he would, even if Balin had to argue with him until it was time to leave Rivendell. Soft-heartedness aside, her idea for the emergency fund had merit, and if she wanted to volunteer her share for the use, he wasn’t about to stop her.

Once she’d done as he bid her, he opened the door to leave, only to stop as the familiar sight of Elves carrying in trays presented itself. “Lass, the w— Elves have brought your meal.”

The day before, he’d been puzzled by the extra food, but after debating just how much food a Hobbit needed for nearly ten minutes, he had a new appreciation for her appetite. But he didn’t expect her response. “Could you ask them to just leave it out there? I’ll be out as soon as I’ve changed.”

Dwalin stepped into view from beside the door and offered Balin a quick nod before addressing the girl warmly. “Make sure it’s something you can fight in; it’s past time I trained you properly.”

A delighted squeak was all Balin heard before the closing door pushed him forwards, nearly pushing him over; Dwalin caught him with one hand, pulling the door securely shut with the other.

Conversationally, Dwalin nodded to the contract, still in Balin’s hand. “She sign it?”

“Aye.” To someone else, perhaps Dwalin’s expression wouldn’t seem to change beyond a slight smile. To Balin, who knew his brother better than anyone else in the world, the flood of relief that poured from Dwalin was nearly tangible.

He went to Thorin without another word, recounting the discussion while keeping one eye on the closed door; a minute later, the Halfling emerged, dressed sensibly aside from her haphazardly-tied hair, and he watched as she and Dwalin argued fiercely in low tones he couldn’t hear. Bearing making her defeat clear, she glared at Dwalin even as she took a few bites of the food; she stood again, but he shook his head, and this time, she relented quickly, sitting down to eat around half the meal or so before standing and bounding out of the room while a softly smiling Dwalin trailed behind.

Part of Balin was curious to see what sort of training his brother would devise: as harsh as usual, or softened for her lesser stature, strength, and capabilities in general? But Thorin didn’t understand the ‘emergency fund’ any more than he had, at first, and so Balin stayed. He had a job to do, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late, today was hectic. On that note, happy Halloween! I don't actually celebrate it, but I enjoy the decorations and candy. Also, pumpkin.  
> Notes: 1) Thorin is not an idiot. However, Thorin is used to thinking of his nephew as a jam-stained child, not as a young man who could (potentially) propose to someone soon. He's aware that it won't be long, but at the moment, he's more focused on Erebor than possible suitors for his niblings. 2) Yes, Balin is paranoid. He has good reason. 3) Those of you who've read Bilbo's contract will (possibly) have noticed that I mentioned some stuff that's not in there. That would be because I started writing this section and then looked up the actual contract in the middle of writing it, and then I liked what I'd already written too much to change it to be more accurate. 4) Yes, the part about the Burglar being under contract to deal with Smaug is in the actual contract. 5) Anyone who caught the 'Father William' reference, I salute you.   
> À demain!


	10. Ori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I FORGOT TO UPDATE I'M SO SORRY!!!!!

Ori laughed quietly, lifting his pencil to avoid ruining his drawing. Belda attacking Dwalin was the perfect opportunity for him to practice doing quick sketches, but given that she was half Dwalin’s size and didn’t pull her punches, it was more than a bit funny to see the famed and feared Guard-Captain of Ered Luin on the defensive. He could remember more than one day when Dwalin had stormed into their house, demanding to know where Nori was and where ‘he’d’ been at a certain time on a certain day; more than one of his childhood nightmares had begun with just that, before Dwalin somehow caught Nori and dragged her off to be executed or worse.

Although, Belda was surprisingly terrifying when she was fighting. She must have been holding back on the road, or perhaps she had more energy now that she had Elves shoving food at her at every turn. Every motion was lightning-quick, every strike aimed to kill or cripple; she had a rather unnerving instinct for that, actually. If Dwalin hadn’t been as skilled as he was, she probably would have landed half her blows. Chuckling, Ori resolved to listen to his brother for once and stay near Belda the next time they were attacked; no matter what Dori thought, though, Ori doubted he’d be the one protecting her. Rather the other way ‘round.

Motion caught his eye and he looked hurriedly down again when he saw that Fíli had entered the courtyard. His ambition may have been to be a scribe, but he loved to draw, and more than most things, getting to be more than anything, he wanted to draw Fíli. Really, he wanted to paint her, dark lines and bold colors that might, perhaps, do her justice, though he doubted anything could.

She was truly beautiful. Stunning, of course, especially with her mustache; Nori was the only other Dwarrowdam he’d ever met who could grow one, and she hadn’t been able to until she was twice Fíli’s age.

But she was kind, too. She wasn’t fierce like Kíli, but she was twice as shrewd, and she was as intelligent as Balin, despite how much younger she was. She’d be a magnificent Queen.

And she needed a King who would be just as skillful. Rather seemed to rule him out.

So it really didn’t matter that his chest grew tight every time he reminded himself of that fact. It didn’t matter that the thought of someone else wearing her beads twisted his stomach into knots. She was a Princess, soon (though, for Thorin’s sake, hopefully not-so-soon) to be Queen, and he was only the son of an exiled weaver, the brother of a criminal. It didn’t matter that if it hadn’t been for Thrór’s madness, Ori and Fíli would have grown up together. So clearly, it didn’t matter that he finally gave in and drew her carefully, doing his best to capture the nuances of her tiny smile as she watched Belda and Dwalin.

It wouldn’t be the first time, or even the tenth, that he’d tried and failed to portray her with the vitality she deserved, but he couldn’t help but sketch her, and yet he couldn’t bear to see a mockery of her face looking at him from the page, lifeless and stiff as she never was in reality.

Muffled voices reached him from outside the courtyard, and he flipped hastily to a blank page just as Kíli collided with his sister. An instant later, the Prince saw Belda and his eyes lit up with an elated grin; running forward, he caught her up in his arms, narrowly avoiding being skewered by one of the blades she held. Lifting her off her feet, he spun them both around, laughing heartily while she shrieked, laughing herself.

Quickly, before the moment passed, Ori sketched them, rough, rapid drawings to catch their motion and energy, and most of all, their happiness. As Kíli slowed to a stop, he didn’t release her, though he set her on her feet again, and she adjusted her arms to wrap loosely around him; they spoke quietly, but Ori only used the opportunity to capture a few details he’d need to finish the scene. He was meant to be recording the Quest, after all. If that included the Prince of Erebor falling in love with a certain Burglar, well…

His eyes drifted to Fíli as she smiled softly at her brother, and a matching smile played on his lips.

…who was he to rewrite history?

 

Two weeks later, he wished fervently, cheeks burning, that he could rewrite this particular moment in history. Kíli’s birthday celebrations were due to begin after dinner, and likely go on into the morning, and Ori might have had a peaceful day. Then Belda let it slip that she didn’t know how to dance, which prompted Dori to remember that Ori’d never learned either, and now, three hours later, Dori was still clapping out the beat, humming loudly and entirely off-key.

Ori winced again, and used the proximity of the current stage of the formal dance to murmur, “He’s not so bad when there’s a tune to follow, but—”

“Left to his own devices, he can’t carry a tune in a bucket?” Belda grinned up at him, a laugh dancing in her eyes. “My Mum was like that, too.”

The steps drew them apart again, too far to keep talking, and she made faces at him every time her back was to Dori; that was the only reason Ori’d been able to go on this long, if he was honest with himself. Used as he was to Dori’s mothering, he could have borne it or distracted his brother if he was on his own, but Belda being dragged into it as well was too mortifying to bear. But she’d taken it with far better humor than he’d expected, and was doing her best to keep him in good humor, too.

Her best was rather impressive. As she made a particularly absurd face, Ori had to smile, and thought to himself, _‘this is why she and Kíli are so good together’_.

The ‘music’ abruptly stopped, and Ori turned to see that Dori was arguing with Nori over something or other, fiercely enough to have turned his back on his students entirely. Quickly, Belda muttered, “I say we make a break for it.”

Ori glanced at her reflexively, then back at Dori. As his brother’s voice began to edge into a tone usually reserved for his most intense, and most distracting lectures, Ori hissed back, “No time like the present.”

Grinning at him, Belda kept hold of his hand and backed not slowly, but steadily out of the courtyard, and Ori watched the doorway, trusting her to watch Dori. As they crossed the threshold, he squeezed her hand, and she darted down the corridor, tossing a grin back at him. Letting himself be towed, he did his best to keep pace with her, and didn’t hesitate before following her up a flight of stairs into a small room. A large mural covered one wall, and the opposite was largely devoted to a statue with a broken sword on a plinth before it, and the entire space was impressively private, given the weed-eaters’ clear preference for windows and arches and such.

Sighing contentedly, Belda released his hand and sat on the floor with her back to the wall. “I don’t think he’ll be able to find us, at least not for a few minutes.”

Chuckling, he sat beside her, closing his eyes as he leaned his head back. “I really am sorry about all this.”

“Don’t be!’ Surprised, his eyes snapped to hers, but he couldn’t see anything more than good humor in the green. “I don’t think I’ve had so much fun in days, and I certainly haven’t been able to relax properly for a fortnight.” He furrowed his brows at her, thinking over long hours of idle sketching, and she grinned at him, but the expression was just a tad small for the topic, he thought. “Between Dwalin and Fíli teaching me to fight, one Elf or another dropping in to give tips, Elrond teaching me the Sindarin Mum didn’t get a chance to, your,” (there was a tiny hesitation before she continued, but Ori didn’t notice), “brother doing his level best to make me into his unofficial apprentice, and finding time to spend with Fíli and Kíli, if I’m not moving, I’m being drowned in information.”

She delivered the last few words with a melodramatic groan, but the small smile that softened her expression as her eyes fluttered shut was genuine enough. “I’m still not fond of the quiet, but peace is nice.” She chuckled. “Still, I’m starting to look forward to getting back on the road; at least then, I’ll only have sore legs instead of sore everything.”

“Including a sore brain?” The tease had slipped out unbidden, almost as though he were speaking to Nori, but Belda just leaned over to bump her shoulder against his arm without opening her eyes.

“Especially my brain.”

Slowly, he shook his head. “Still, though. Learning another language must be fascinating.”

The movement was gradual, no more noticeable than an approaching storm cloud from underneath trees, but much like a summer storm, the next thing Ori knew, Belda was facing him with a diabolical grin and a doubly devilish glint in her eyes. “Funny you should say that.” A twinge of foreboding struck Ori, and he watched mutely, uneasily, as she ‘casually’spoke. “I’ve noticed that Thorin, Fíli, Kíli, and Balin, and maybe Dwalin, seem to be fluent in Sindarin, but it doesn’t seem as though any of the rest of you are.”

The more time he spent with her, the more he saw his sister, and so he responded against his better judgement. “We aren’t. I don’t think anyone but Fíli and Kíli have learned since Erebor fell.” Dori and Nori had refused to learn, and now there was no one to teach Ori, no matter how much he wished he could.

Belda hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose that does make sense.” For a moment or two, she was silent, but it was the tense, waiting sort of silence Ori knew all-too-well from his sister’s schemes. “So it’s funny, then, that Bifur doesn’t seem able to speak Westron, and all of you seem perfectly able of understanding him.”

Shock stole his voice entirely away, and he could only watch as Belda artfully mused aloud, her tone one of practiced nonchalance.

“The contract referred to it as ‘the Dwarven Tongue’. Balin tried to tell me it was a dialect of Rohirric,” Ori opened his mouth to confirm that, but she didn’t give him the chance to speak, “which is absolute nonsense, seeing as how I know a bit of Rohirric and it’s completely different—”

“I can’t teach you!” It was obvious what she wanted, and just as fervently out of the question. “Khuzdûl’s only for Dwarves; it’s a secret!”

He held her eyes, panting slightly, but she only gave him a slow grin. “‘Khuzdûl’?” Somehow, she mimicked his pronunciation perfectly, and her next words were half-drawled, half-purred. “Is that what it’s called?” Groaning, he covered his eyes, but she kept talking. “And as for the secrecy— you know, funnily enough, there’s a clause in the contract, what did it say? ‘Confidentiality is of utmost importance and must be strictly maintained at all times. During the course of her employment with the Company, Burglar will hear, learn, and gain knowledge of particular facts, ideas, et cetera’, I’m paraphrasing, by the way, ‘and Burglar agrees to neither divulge nor make known this knowledge by any means, including but not limited to speech, writing’, duh-dah-duh, ‘or means currently known, unknown, or as yet unthought-of’.”

She hummed again. “You know, I do have to be impressed with Balin’s detail; he was very thorough. But a Baggins always keeps her word, you know, even a Took-Baggins. Which means that since I signed that contract and gave my word to ‘neither divulge nor make known’ anything I learn from all of you, that means that it’s a secret I’ll take to my grave.”

He could hear the solemnity in her voice, and he trusted that she meant it, but still, “I— I can’t!”

He met her eyes as he spoke, but regretted it as soon as he did; her pleading face was leagues better than Nori’s, Dori’s, or Kíli’s. “I’m only offering a trade, Ori. Sindarin lessons for Khuzdûl lessons.”

She leaned forward slightly, and Ori leaned back until he was afraid he’d lose his balance; she stopped, though, and somehow made her expression even more imploring, adding a slight pout and a head-tilt, scrunching her shoulders slightly to make herself look smaller. If Ori hadn’t had lessons on doing much the same from Nori when he was a dwarfling, he might have fallen for it.

“And I’d appreciate it hugely, you know. I’m sure there’s some way I could pay you back…” She blinked up at him, eyes liquid and innocent; with a slight pout, she furrowed her brow faintly. “I can’t think of anything at the moment. Perhaps Fíli could help.”

Even with Nori’s lessons at the back of his mind, Ori was starting to find it a little hard to focus, and his voice was a little hoarse. “F— Fíli?”

Belda smiled at him guilelessly. “Well, obviously, I wouldn’t tell her just why I’m indebted to you. I’d just tell her that you’d helped me hugely, that you were so kind, and thoughtful, and generous…” The thought of Belda telling Fíli all that about him, of Fíli thinking all that about him, of Fíli smiling at him like Belda was as she drew the silence out for just a beat or two longer, was almost more than he could bear. As was the simultaneously matter-of-fact and cajoling tone with her words. “I’m sure she’d be glad to know what a good man you are.”

Reason finally broke through the fantasy, and Ori scooted away as best he could, ignoring the sting in his chest as he snapped, “She’s a Princess!”

Belda raised a brow at him as she settled back against the wall again. “And?” He gave her an incredulous look, and she laughed. “I’m sorry if there’s something I’m missing, but the Shire doesn’t have a monarchy. It barely has a hierarchy.” Shrugging, she laughed again. “Unless her side of the family’s feuding with yours, I’m afraid I really don’t understand what the problem is.”

Ori’s words caught in his throat, and Belda’s expression cleared into fascination as she picked up on his hesitance. “Wait, really? A feud?”

Grimacing, Ori toyed with one of the braids in his beard; he hated having it so short. “Sort of.”

As the silence dragged on, Belda raised her brows expectantly, but didn’t say anything for another few seconds. “Well, go on then. You can’t just leave it there.”

Yes, he certainly could, Ori thought. It was his family, which made it his business. And technically, it was treason to tell it.

…But he liked Belda. She was a good friend, and similar enough to his sister that he trusted she was intelligent enough not to tell anyone she knew.

Dori would be furious if he told. But was that such a bad thing?

“…You heard Thorin’s lineage?”

Belda raised a disbelieving brow at him. “Um, maybe?”

No, it was the sort of thing she would remember. “When Elrond recognized him.”

That had been a chaotic day, but Ori could remember it perfectly; he had a feeling she could, too, even if she needed a prompt. Belda thought for a moment, brow furrowed, before her eyes lit up with the memory. “Right, ‘Thorin, son of Thrain’, and… ‘his grandfather, Thrór’s bearing’?”

The latter half was far more hesitant, but accurate, and Ori smiled broadly at her. “That’s it.” She gave a pleased, radiant smile back, and he tried to ignore the warmth in his chest. “That’s it. Thrór was King under the Mountain when Smaug came. He ruled Erebor for a hundred and eighty years before then, and…” He hesitated; she was friends with Fíli, and clearly had feelings for Kíli. Should he tell her? It might make her think less of them. But then, she might need to know once they reclaimed the mountain. “…have you heard of gold-sickness?”

Eyes wide and enthralled, she shook her head; he decided to ease the truth a bit. “It’s something that can affect any Dwarf, but especially Durin’s line.” Her expression didn’t change, and, regretting how much it might hurt her, he continued softly, “And especially Durin’s Heirs.” He put a slight emphasis on the last word, and with her attention so focused on him, he could see the instant she made the connection. (Internally, he was a little impressed by the speed; she was quicker than he’d thought, and clearly brighter.) “It makes them greedy, paranoid, blind to anything but gold and jewels.”

The hint of pain in her eyes didn’t stop her from prompting, “And Thrór had it.”

Ori nodded, lowering his eyes as he remembered Dori’s lessons. “He turned against his allies first: the Elves of Mirkwood and the Men of Dale, but…” He shook his head. “He grew convinced that his youngest sister was plotting against him, along with her line, and exiled them all: Nrór; her daughter, Dór; Dór’s husband, Krovi; and their son… Dori.”

He swallowed nervously, but didn’t even have time to clear his throat before she leaned forward slightly, brow furrowed. “So you and Thorin are third cousins?”

Blinking at how quickly she’d done the math, he shook off his surprise, reminding himself of how big she’d said Hobbit families could be. “Not that you could tell from a history book.” Bitterness inherited from his brother seeped into his tone; he tried to banish it, but wasn’t entirely successful. “Thrór had Nrór erased from all the records, and her descendants with her.”

Abruptly, Belda’s expression shuttered. “So they were alone.”

His heart gave a funny little twist to see her so lifeless, and he spoke hastily. “No, they did fairly well, all things considered. Nrór could out-haggle anyone, and Mother was a weaver, so she earned some coin, as well.” From Dori’s accounts, it sounded as though their father hadn’t handled the unearned disgrace nearly as well as his wife and in-laws, but there was no need to tell Belda that part. “Nrór was already old, but she didn’t die until after Nori was born, and Mother and Father were able to support themselves and Dori and Nori for decades, and we came to Ered Luin around a century after the banishment, I think. Anyw—”

“Wait, n— Wait.” Leaning forward again, eyes intense, Belda didn’t speak for a moment, but Ori just waited, still tongue-tied from her interruption. “A century.”

This time, she did seem to expect a response, and he spoke slowly, unsure if she’d simply misheard him. “Yeah, around there.”

“A century.”

Maybe he’d been wrong about how intelligent she was. “…Yeah…”

“And this was after Dori was born?” Her expression was beginning to be a bit manic, but he answered as calmly as he could.

“Yeah, and Nori; she’s a little over forty years younger than Dori.”

“Forty—” Now she was starting to look panicked, and blurted, “How old are you?!?”

“A hundred and twenty-three.”

He wasn’t sure how he’d expected her to react, but what sounded like rapid, shocked, foreign swearing hadn’t been on the list. “Eyru Yavanna, Fætur Eldfreyja, og Tennur Tauron, how long do Dwarves live!?!

She had no idea how complicated that question truly was, so he simplified a bit. “It depends, but usually at least two and a half centuries.”

Was she hyperventilating? He was fairly sure she was hyperventilating. “S—so, Kíli’s coming of age tonight, he’s…”

Her voice seemed to give out, and he finished her sentence, unease growing. “Turning sixty.” To that, she could only gape at him, mouth opening and closing as squeaks that might have been attempts at words left her. “Why?” His blood chilled as a possible answer occurred to him. “…When do Hobbits come of age?”

Her eyes were distant now, and her hoarse voice even more so. “Thirty-three.”

For a moment or two, the number was nothing. Just a number, an odd bit of trivia about another race, to be tucked away with the price of begonias and the acreage of the Iron Hills. Then he realized.

_‘Thirty-three, but she said she’d be of age later this year, said she’s Kíli’s age, said she’s an adult, she’s thirty-two, she’s twelve years younger than Gimli, she’s half Fíli’s age, a quarter of mine, thirty-two, a child, twice as young as we thought, thirty-two, half sixty-four, thirty-two, thirty-twothirty-twothirty-twothirTY-TWOTHIRTY-TWO—’_

He wasn’t aware of moving until he was already on his feet and racing for the door, but he felt every instant as a tiny foot hooked one of his and he fell; as soon as he was down, he flipped onto his back, intending to scramble back and away, but before he could move an inch, Belda was sitting on his chest, knees pinning his arms while she covered his mouth with both hands, putting all her weight into gagging him. Eyes wild and terrified, she shook her head as she blurted, “You can’t tell anyone, you can’t— I mean it, Ori!”

Nearly all her weight was on his chest and his mouth, but she barely weighed anything, especially to him, but he couldn’t really do anything without hurting her, which was completely impossible with his mind still screaming, _‘child, she’s a child, thirty-two_ ’. Even so, he struggled; her legs, though, were surprisingly strong, and try as he might, he couldn’t dislodge her.

“Stop it! I mea— Stop! Or— or—” Some of the desperation faded from her eyes as she gaped, leaving raw fear on display, but resolve hid her fear again within a heartbeat. “Or I’ll tell Dori you told me about being Thorin’s cousin!”

At that, he did stop. He didn’t fear his brother, exactly, but there was nothing in the world he hated so much as seeing Dori’s disappointment. Rising and falling slightly with his chest, she panted quietly for several seconds before cautiously lifting her hands from his mouth. Immediately, he strained up to meet her eyes. “Belda, you have to tell them—”

“No!” The word was half a shriek, but she didn’t muzzle him again; with a small growl, he sat up easily, scooting back so that she wasn’t sitting in his lap.

“Everyone thinks you’re Kíli’s age—”

“I am Kíli’s age—”

“You’re a child!”

“To Dwarves, not to Hobbits!”

Involuntarily, he paused; there had been a guttural growl underlying her last few words, though it’d been quiet, and her eyes had flashed with something almost feral. On one hand, he was a little scared. On the other hand, he had no idea what had just happened, and he was dying to know. But now wasn’t the time. Deliberately, he held her eyes. “If you don’t tell them, I will.”

Her eyes flew wide, panic again clear. “You can’t!”

“I will!” No matter how curious he was, there were some things more important than knowledge, and the safety of a girl-child was paramount.

But she shook her head frantically. “No, they’ll send me away!”

He opened his mouth to respond, but no words came. Her desperation was almost tangible, and far too familiar after decades of listening to Dori beg their sister to ‘stop this nonsense and come home’; she sounded as though being sent away was a fate worse than death. Actually, she hadn’t even been this afraid when the Trolls had had her, when she had been about to die.

Her breathing slowed somewhat, but the fear in her eyes didn’t fade. “They will, Ori, you know they will. They’ll react like you, they’ll say I’m too young to come along, and they’ll leave me here or send me back—” Breath catching in her throat, she shook her head as her eyes filled. “I can’t go back! I can’t! Please—” Blinking rapidly, she visibly forced herself to calm, and held his eyes. “Please, Ori. I’m not too young to come along. If I was, Gandalf would never have agreed to let me come in the first place; he knows how old I am.”

Try as he might, he couldn’t think of a way to argue that, and she calmed a little further; she spoke carefully and quietly, holding his gaze all the while. “Hobbits come of age at thirty-three, Ori. My Grandfather was a hundred and thirty when he died, and he’s the oldest Hobbit to ever live in recorded memory. Most live to see a hundred, if that. If I were a Dwarf, I would be a child, but if I were human, I’d have been an adult for nearly fifteen years. I am not a Dwarf. I’m a Hobbit. I have little growth left before I’m a full adult, and I haven’t really been a child for eleven years, not since the Fell Winter, not since my parents died—!”

Again, her breath caught, and this time she ducked her head to try and hide the tears that spilled over her cheeks; hesitantly, Ori reached toward her, intending to pat her arm or some such, but she leaned away from his hand and rubbed the tears away. She still didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to do, and not just about her crying.

She was right; if she’d been human, there’d be no doubt about her maturity, and none of the Company would reject her help. But she was no more human than a Dwarrowdam; she wasn’t as young as a Dwarf of thirty-two would be, but she was young. Thorin may have given her the contract, but he never would have if he’d known her true age. But Gandalf did know her true age, and he’d been nudging Thorin toward giving her the contract for at least a week or so before they reached Rivendell.

She’d already saved them, proved that she was as capable as any of them, and only growing more so, what with all the instruction Dwalin and Nori were insisting on. But that didn’t mean he was willing to lie for her. Not indefinitely.

Taking a deep breath, he pointed a finger at her, imitating Thorin’s glower as best he could. “If I do this, and that’s if, you will tell them the truth at some point.”

Slowly, she looked up at him, hope creeping into her expression. “That’s your condition?” He nodded; for an instant, her eyes lit up, but her expression fell into a scowl a moment later. “You Dwarves. If you can’t craft a binding promise, you could at least not make me feel terrible for even thinking of taking advantage of you.”

He frowned. “Wha—”

“‘At some point’? Shoddy wording, Ori, I’m ashamed of you. I could promise that in a blink and not follow through until years after the Quest is over and done with.” Mulishly, she sighed. “Do better. Try again.”

“Er…” Blinking, he thought for several seconds, trying to stop feeling as though he were a Dwarfling at his lessons again. “You have to tell them before you come back to the Shire?” She only raised a brow at him, and he winced as he remembered that she had no intention of ever returning to her homeland, and that Fíli and Kíli, at least, intended to persuade her to live permanently in Erebor. “Right, um… You have to tell them before the end of the Quest?”

Sighing again, she clenched her jaw. “Always define terms, Ori, unless you want someone else to define them for you.”

Terms? Right. “You have to tell them before we reach Erebor.”

“Who’s them and what am I telling them?”

Half-smiling, he shook his head; now he really felt like he was taking a test. “You have to tell the rest of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield how old you truly are before we reach Erebor.”

“Or…?”

“Or I’ll tell them.”

Sighing again, she narrowed her eyes at him as though she were debating something with herself; sitting up again, she took a deep breath. “So. These are your terms: I must tell the Company of Thorin Oakenshield that I am thirty-two years of age at some point in the months before we reach the Lonely Mountain, or you will inform them regardless of my wishes or intentions.”

Unsure why she was restating what he’d only just finished saying, he blinked at her. “…Yes?”

She shook her head at him a bit pityingly. “Dear Lord, you have a lot to learn. I accept your terms and your oath, and will fulfill my side of the pledge to the best of my ability, and as it inconveniences me least.” He started to protest, but she just held up a hand. “Meaning that I’ll tell them at the first opportunity past the point of no return, whenever that may be.”

They sat in silence for a few moments before he spoke. “So is this when you hold the promise over my head for Khuzdûl lessons?”

The words came out a tad more bitterly than he’d intended, but by the way she flinched back, eyes wide and hurt, he’d almost have thought that she was physically wounded. “No!” Looking a bit betrayed, she shook her head emphatically. “No, I never meant— It’s just an offer, Ori. If you want to learn Sindarin, I’ll teach you in exchange for you teaching me Khuzdûl. That’s it. If you agree, I’ll be happy to chat you up to Fíli, but I’d do that anyway, if you asked. I didn’t…” Trailing off, she turned her head, hunching slightly in on herself. “I’m sorry for blackmailing you a few minutes ago. I was desperate, but it was still wrong. I’m sorry.”

A remote part of his mind couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t ask for forgiveness, and even the slight excuse was brushed away almost as quickly as she’d mentioned it. A much more biased part of his mind was glad that she didn’t ask him to forgive her, as he wasn’t quite sure he could. Something as base as extortion was almost unheard of from any but the most morally bankrupt of Dwarrow. He hadn’t thought Belda would be capable of it, even if she did regret it. But from the sound of it, her ‘family’ hadn’t exactly been stellar examples of morality, so…

He cleared his throat. “Just don’t do that again.”

She nodded immediately, but didn’t meet his eyes; holding back a sigh as he pushed to his feet, he extended a hand to her, clearing his throat when she didn’t look up right away. Her head snapped up, and she flushed as she laid her hand in his. She barely put any weight into the hold, even bearing in mind that he could probably pick her up one-handed, and instead stood on her own. He wasn’t sure what that meant in Hobbits’ thinking, but he couldn’t help but think a tiny bit better of her for it; only Dwarflings, weaklings, and con artists would degrade themselves by accepting help for something as basic as standing.

Once she was on her feet, he stepped back and let his hand fall away from hers, and cleared his throat again. “We should get going. We’ll be late.” Remembering the reason for the celebration, he grinned at her. “Kíli’ll be missing you.”

Honestly, he’d say the Prince was acting like a lovestruck Dwarfling, but, well… he was a lovestruck Dwarfling. But Belda’s eyes darkened, the pain from before returning. Not quite sure why, he offered, “It’s not as bad as it seems. Thrór was gold-sick, but Thraín and Thorin never were; there’s every chance Kíli’ll never give in to the dragon-sickness.”

Her expression had been lightening, but on the last words, her eyes widened, the emotion there indiscernible. “‘Dragon-sickness’? Y— You said ‘gold-sickness’, before.”

Abruptly, he realized how it might sound to someone who’d never heard of it before. “No, it doesn’t mean he’ll turn into a dragon, or anything. It’s just called that sometimes, since there’s no creature on Arda more greedy and heartless than dragons.”

She still looked troubled, but mustered a weak smile. “That’s disappointing. My mother used to tell me bedtime stories about dragons, where they weren’t evil… even if they weren’t good, either.”

The last part of the sentence was murmured quietly enough that Ori elected to simply pretend he hadn’t heard it, and smiled weakly back at her. “I wish Dwarves had that luxury, but I don’t think there’s a Dwarf alive who could ever imagine dragons as anything less than monstrous.”

Her smile faltered, no doubt as she thought of fond memories and fairy tales, but she shook it off after a moment or two and led the way out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I repeat, I'M SORRY!!!!  
> I even opened the file last night to read through it and make sure it was ready to post, and then I just got completely distracted. I'm sorry! I'll post another chapter today to make up for it.  
> (Spoiler: They're actually going to leave Rivendell, finally.) Seriously, this section ended up way longer than I expected. But I promise, next chapter will get things moving again.  
> Belda's 'cursing', btw, translates (if Google Translate has not failed me) as 'Yavanna's Ears, Vána's Feet, and Oromë's Teeth'. Yes, that is significant.  
> Also, yay Belda&Ori Bromance! I feel like pretty much no matter what 'verse a Hobbit story takes place in, there needs to be at least some B/O BROTP stuff, just with the shared interests and all. Also-also, did you enjoy seeing her con-artist side? There's a very good reason Ori's starting to think of her (only a little, but still) as a kid sister, and it's because she's almost exactly like his big sister. Honestly, Belda's personality is about 50% Dwalin, 50% Nori.  
> Somehow, I feel like there's at least a couple of you who are neither surprised by that, nor will be surprised by the way this story goes. Although, you're going to have to wait until Monday for that, but still.  
> Eh. À bientôt!  
> (P.S., no, Ori doesn't know that Belda knows. He called Nori 'she' by accident because he was so distracted by Belda's impending freak-out, and freaked out about his slip later. He consoled himself with the fact that Belda hadn't reacted at all, so clearly she hadn't caught it. (^u^))


	11. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BREAKING NEWS: DWARVES LEAVE RIVENDELL, ELVES THROW RECORD-BREAKING CELEBRATION

Belda did her best to keep her thoughts off her face as she trailed after Elrond, Gandalf, Thorin, and Balin, but she wasn’t sure how successful she’d been. Ori’s confirmation that nothing good would come of her telling the Company her soul-form had been a blow, and it still ached when she let herself think on it too long. Kíli had been concerned at his party, as it turned out, but she tried to keep it from showing. A coming of age was no small matter, even if it was more arbitrary for Dwarves than anything else. She wasn’t about to ruin his night just because she’d been reminded of things she’d almost let herself forget.

As if the rest of it hadn’t been bad enough. That they’d hate her if they knew was a given; that the man she had an utterly foolish, utterly Tookish crush on was nearly twice her age was completely unexpected. Not to mention the fact that he’d outlive her by a century, at least. She’d gotten a headache just thinking about it, and now, a week later, it still hadn’t left. Faded, yes, to a dull ache (with the occasional stinging) behind her eyes, but not left. It had made her a bit light-sensitive, but it was easy enough to deflect the others’ concern.

Except at times such as this. She couldn’t hold back a wince as Elrond pushed open a set of double doors to reveal a balcony overlooking a waterfall, awash in stunningly (and painfully) bright moonlight. Fortunately, no one was looking, and she schooled her expression before Elrond even began to speak.

“These runes were written on a Midsummer’s Eve by the light of a crescent moon nearly two hundred years ago.”

He said something after that, but Belda didn’t hear him. She hadn’t realized that it was Midsummer’s Eve. Grief washed over her, remembering her Grandfather’s Midsummer’s Eve celebrations; he’d called Gandalf to supply fireworks once or twice when she was a fauntling, but by and large, she didn’t remember light-shows. She remembered her Grandfather’s broad smile, and the thrill that always accompanied his stories, and the warmth of his arms around her when he insisted on goodbye hugs from his ‘favorite grandchild’. She still doubted that she’d ever been his favorite, though she knew her Mum had been his favorite daughter, but she’d never cared about how much he loved her. She’d only known that she loved him, and dearly. And now, she only knew that she missed him.

As the clouds parted to reveal the moon, and the crystal stand in front of Elrond shone even more brightly, Belda tried to sniffle quietly, and was only glad that she could blame her tears on the radiance if she needed. Elrond, Gandalf, and Thorin stood huddled around the crystal, but she just waited near Balin; even if the light hadn’t hurt her eyes, there still wouldn’t have been any point in getting closer, seeing as how she could barely see over the edge of the stand.

“Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the keyhole.” Elrond spoke haltingly, enough so that Belda surmised he was reading it from the map and translating as he went.

She glanced sidelong at Balin; turning to face him meant looking at the moon, which wasn’t going to happen until her headache faded. “Durin’s Day?”

Surprisingly, Gandalf answered. “It’s the start of the Dwarves’ New Year, when the last moon of autumn and the first sun of winter appear in the sky together.” She tucked the information away, but didn’t get a chance to respond before Thorin spoke.

“This is ill news.” She frowned; _‘Why?’_ “Summer is passing. Durin’s Day will soon be upon us.”

Balin stepped forward; Belda winced at the moonlight. “We still have time.”

Her headache made her tone a bit sharper than she intended, but at the moment, she didn’t care. “For what?”

One hand raised, Balin met her eyes distractedly. “To find the entrance.” She tried not to look incredulous. They didn’t know where it was? Balin turned back to Thorin, and Belda moved to stand behind Gandalf, where he’d block the light, as the elder Dwarf spoke. “We have to be standing in exactly the right spot, at exactly the right time. Then, and only then, can the door be opened.”

“So this is your purpose? To enter the mountain?” Elrond’s tone made it clear what he thought of that, but by the way the Dwarves startled (only barely, but enough to see), Belda wondered if they’d actually forgotten the Elf was there.

Thorin glared up at him. “What of it?”

Elrond put on what Belda had started, over the last weeks of tutoring, to recognize as his ‘I’m older than the Shire, obey me’ tone, even as he handed the map back to Thorin. “There are some who would not deem it wise.”

Rolling her eyes, Belda raised her voice just slightly. “There are also some who would ‘not deem it wise’ to leave a bloody fire-drake free to raze Middle-Earth at his leisure, and some who would ‘not deem it wise’ to put yourselves at odds with the only bloody race who even comes near living as long as you do.” All the men looked at her sharply, and she smothered a growl. “Honestly, for Races with such bloody long memories, you’d think some of you would be willing to forgive and forget, just occasionally, and especially when you have a common enemy! Or have you all forgotten that Smaug is a danger to the whole of Arda, not just Dwarves, and not excluding Elves?!”

She looked between all of them but Gandalf as she spoke, and kept doing so after she finished. But none of them reacted other than to cough quietly (Balin) and shift their weight defensively (Thorin). Pressing the heels of her hands to the bridge of her nose, Belda groaned and gave up. “I have a headache; I’m going to bed.” As she left, she called over her shoulder, “Let me know if any of you decide to be rational adults!”

Petty? Yes. Did she care? No. But she hadn’t even reached the guest quarters before Thorin caught up with her. She met his eyes evenly, though she refused to be cowed by his scowl, and simply waited. After a moment, he growled, “Pack your bags; we leave at first light.”

With that, he walked away, and she gaped after him for a moment. Did he actually think it would be that easy? That the Elves, who, she guessed, would be rather opposed to his ‘provoke a dragon’ plan, would just twiddle their thumbs and let them leave?

Again, she rolled her eyes. Was she going to be responsible for keeping the Quest afloat all the way to Erebor?

* * *

 

Balin

 

As the Halfling stormed out of sight, Balin stifled another laugh; Elrond had appeared slightly discomfited during her tirade, which was more of a reaction than he’d ever seen from an Elf. And here he’d thought the lass had grown fond of the weed-eater.

More loudly than usual, Gandalf cleared his throat. “Who did you mean?”

The Elf-Lord stared at him for a beat longer than seemed natural before he spoke, affecting the same tone as before. “You are not the only guardian to stand watch over Middle-Earth.”

After holding Gandalf’s gaze for another moment or so, he glanced at Balin and Thorin; stepping closer to the Wizard, Elrond spoke too quietly for Balin to hear, and took his leave as soon as he was finished. “What did he say?”

Balin was curious, as well, but he wasn’t sure he would’ve been as blunt as Thorin. But Gandalf answered, grimly. “I’ve been summoned. And I suspect those who’ve called me are some of those Elrond referred to.”

“They’d object to our course?” Balin had only asked for clarity’s sake, but was somewhat gratified when Gandalf nodded.

“And likely try to stop you. Unless they were too late, of course.” The Wizard gave Thorin a meaningful look, then followed the Elf.

Balin glanced at his King, but asked nothing; he knew what Thorin’s decision would be.

 

The next morning, by the time the sun rose over the (not-so-)distant mountains, the Company was a full hour’s travel out of Rivendell, though the twisting paths meant that they’d not covered as much ground as would be preferable, and the city was still visible behind them.

Thorin, just ahead of him, called back to the others, “Be on your guard. We’re about to step over the edge of the wild.” Slowing to a stop, he turned to Balin and opened his mouth, but a mutter interrupted him.

“…bt the weed-eaters will let us go so ea…” Balin hadn’t been able to make out the speaker, but Thorin obviously had, as he scowled at someone further back.

“Nori, do you have something to say?”

Coughing quietly with the effort not to laugh, Balin didn’t turn to look at the thief. He’d never been his and Thorin’s top choice for the Company, or even in the top fifty. Dwalin had protested his inclusion vehemently, but at that point, the thief had already signed the contract, so there hadn’t been much anyone could do about him.

But Nori spoke again, voice as insolent as ever. “Aye. I said, I doubt the weed-eaters will let us go so easily. We have their little darling, don’t we? They’ll have prob’ly sent scouts after us already.”

Now, strictly speaking, Balin couldn’t argue the point; the Elves did seem oddly fond of the Halfling, and would likely do as Nori had surmised, or would soon, but even so, that level of disrespect was completely untenable.

But as Balin turned to scowl at the thief himself, the Burglar cut him off blithely from the back of the line. “Of course not.”

The entire Company looked toward her, and as though to abet their curiosity, she stepped slightly to the side of the line of Dwarves. Unsurprisingly, Bofur was the one to break the silence. “…uh, why?”

She shrugged. “Because I left a note.”

Eyes widening a fraction, Balin glanced back at Thorin unconsciously; the King’s expression darkened into a fresh glower, black as pitch, and Balin looked back toward the Hobbit as Thorin rumbled, “A note?”

Nodding easily, she began moving as she spoke, ambling past the Company; despite her apparent nonchalance, Balin saw that she chose her steps carefully, though she seemed to have no fear of the drop. “Yes, a note detailing how you’d finally seen the error of your ways and persuaded me that the wild is no place for a young Hobbit, and that we’d had to leave immediately since none of you wanted to risk my changing my mind, and therefore, all thirteen of you are currently escorting me back to the Shire to reunite me with my family.”

She slowed to a stop and looked back at the Company, one by one. Balin couldn’t look away from her long enough to see their faces, but he guessed they felt as flabbergasted as he did.

After another moment or so, she shrugged and kept moving past Thorin. “Well, you all might wait, but the sun won’t.”

She gave an odd sort of shiver as she moved ahead of the King, as though she were shaking water out of her ears, or trying not to; the peculiarity of it broke Balin out of his stupor and he closed his mouth with a quiet snap. Thorin seemed similarly affected, and he nodded to Balin with a somewhat-softened scowl. “You know these paths. Lead on.”

Nodding to Thorin, Balin moved ahead, and after a moment’s hesitation, drew level with the Burglar. The path was narrow, but she was small enough that there was just enough room for them to walk side-by-side. She gave him a sidelong look, but said nothing, and a few minutes passed in silence; all the while, he was thinking of Dwalin’s words. It was obvious that he had a soft spot for the lass, but all he would say, no matter how often Balin asked, was ‘she’s alone’, which made no sense; she was surrounded by people.

“My brother seems fond of you.” He kept his tone light, his voice quiet, but she still glanced at him sharply.

Eyes narrowing the barest fraction, she looked ahead again. “You’d know, I suppose.”

Her voice was as quiet as his, but she couldn’t quite keep her tone as bland; remembering how well she’d hidden her emotions when they’d gone over the contract, he had to wonder: was she foxing the edge in her words, or did it run too deeply for her to hide? “And you of him.”

This time, the look she directed toward him was anything but quick, though it was even more cutting than the previous. And far too astute for her to have missed his insinuation. Good; he hadn’t meant her to. She looked at the path again, but kept her head angled just slightly toward him, and the slow, deliberate way she spoke left him in no doubt of her opinion of him at the moment. “I respect him, yes.”

Balin hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose he reminds you of someone.”

Her bearing didn’t change, but her voice was frigid. “Not in the slightest.”

Balin didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to respond, truthfully; he hadn’t expected that answer.

She glanced at him again, eyes as cold as her faux-casual tone. “Dwarves and Hobbits have very different natures. Out of the entire Company, I think you, Ori, Dori, Bombur, and perhaps Bofur would do well in the Shire. The rest of you…” The eye he could see skated dismissively over him before she faced forward again. “All of Hobbiton would run screaming.”

Frowning, a single question escaped before he could stop it. “Then why?”

Once again, she looked toward him, but this time her eyes stilled, her expression softened, and the venom left her voice when she finally did speak, leaving a quiet, contemplative sincerity. “…He’s a good man. Brusque, and a bit harsh, but he’s kinder than I expected. I think that’s about the only thing he has in common with my father.”

Balin's eyebrow leapt up; he hadn’t so much as implied any connection between Dwalin and her father, and that she’d let it slip was either a calculated misdirection (which he doubted) or a genuine hint of how she saw his brother. But then, he scowled, the daughter of Dwalin, son of Fundin, would still be put in a place of honor once Erebor was restored. “So it has nothing to do with his connections to the royal family of Erebor?”

Her head snapped toward him, her eyes blazing with affronted outrage worthy of Thorin, before banking, just slightly, to reveal something far more feral than any Dwarf could comprehend. He didn’t lean away from her, his self-control was too refined for that, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to. When she spoke, her voice held that same feral edge. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’re only trying to protect him. This time. But if you actually think I’m capable of that level of heartless avarice—”

“Are you?” He held her eyes as his words sunk in, and saw as the snarl faded from her expression, saw the hint of uncertainty before she faced forward again.

“…I don’t know.”

His brows leapt up. “Excuse me?”

Jaw clenched, she gave a small huff. “As your brother, my Godfather, and what seems like half of Middle-Earth seems intent on reminding me, I’m young.” Despondence replaced the irritation in her bearing, and her voice quieted. “I’ve never been out of the Shire before, let alone trekked hundreds of miles to a bloody dragon-occupied mountain. I can guess what I’ll do, how I’ll react, but I don’t know if it’ll be the case or not.” She shrugged. “I’ve never been greedy before, but I’ve never known anything but the Shire, and for all my family’s numerous faults, I never wanted for material things.”

Balin couldn’t help the shocked exclamation, “They starved you!”

“Yes, but I had a bed, a roof over my head, paper and ink, albeit on allowance, books when I could get into into the library, and they never laid a finger on me. I had more than some do.” Her voice had grown almost hushed as she went on, and didn’t louden when she began speaking again. “So I don’t know what I would do if I were on my own. Guess, yes, but know, no. But I do know that I haven’t had anyone who cared for me in—” Abruptly, she cut herself off, and her voice was thick when she continued a few moments later. “In a long while. I told you that I don’t know if I’ll stay in Erebor. That wasn’t quite true, although it wasn’t a lie. I know that I want to stay. But,” she shrugged helplessly; Balin didn’t know what to do, and so he did nothing, only listened. “I don’t know what I’ll do when the time comes for me to go into the mountain. I don’t know what you’ll all think of me afterwards. And I know that I can’t, I won’t, stay where I’m not wanted.”

Her eyes were shining in the dawn-light by the time she finished, and Balin waited to respond until she looked a little calmer. “You seemed to be wanted in Rivendell.”

Dismissively, she snorted. “You know, there’s a hall in the Shire called the Mathom-House. It’s larger than it needs to be, it’s not often visited, and it’s full of weapons, useless trinkets, anything unwanted and never thought of. A dusty, stagnant, mausoleum of a museum.”

She left it there, but the connection was obvious. Balin regarded her thoughtfully for a moment; she’d seemed happy with the weed-eaters, but then again, she’d initially turned down their aid, and just the night before, she’d been as irritated with Elrond as she was with Thorin and himself. Maybe she was telling the truth. Humming thoughtfully, he kept his tone casually curious. “I didn’t realize Hobbits had any weapons.”

“Almost none that we use anymore.” He glanced at her involuntarily; her tone had been almost petulant, and her moue was even more sullen. “It hasn’t been long since we needed them, but I think all of them would rather pretend it never happened.”

‘We’ needed, but ‘they’ would pretend, he noted. “Not you?”

She fixed him with a sidelong, pointed look. “I’m on a quest to eliminate a dragon because of the risk he poses.”

‘A danger to the whole of Arda’, he remembered she’d called Smaug; he was careful to keep it from showing, but, yet again, he reevaluated his view of her accordingly. “Point taken.” They were silent for a moment or two as the path curved; she relaxed marginally when they weren’t directly facing East, he noticed, and she stopped squinting. He hadn’t noticed that she was in the first place. “You speak as though Hobbits routinely need to defend themselves.”

“Not routinely. Just occasionally.”

She was silent for a moment; interest piqued, he prompted, “Such as?”

She didn’t respond, but when he glanced over, her expression was thoughtful. “…Orcs attacked Eriador.” Balin stumbled; she kept talking. “A bit under two hundred years ago, I think. The Rangers stopped most of them, but one party made it to the Shire. My Great-something-Grandfather on my mother’s side rode out against them.” A grin broke through her nonchalance. “He was massive; nearly four and a half feet tall, big enough to ride a horse!” She laughed, the same laugh and same expression as when she’d spoken of her future library. “He decapitated Golfimbul Orc-King with a single blow, and the rest fled.”

It wasn’t much of a story, but with how pacifistic Hobbits seemed to be, it was likely one of their greatest martial achievements. “He sounds quite the warrior.”

“As close as a Hobbit can get.” Startled, he looked toward her; she met his eyes soberly before continuing in the same half-resigned tone as before. “We aren’t made for war. Battle, some of us, but not war. Our first instinct is to hide, always. Then…” She shrugged. “Some fight and some flee. Most flee, really. We aren’t warriors.” Her eyes hardened. “But a fair number of us will fight to protect what’s ours; some so their kin can escape, some to eliminate the threat. The latter group…” The steel left her eyes, and he realized where she’d be. “We aren’t trusted, generally. It’s different when we’re all together, like Mum was with her family in Tuckborough. There, it’s safe, but even then, the more… hawkish of us are viewed with some suspicion.”

“That’s barbaric.”

Even the most intolerant Dwarves wouldn’t reject their clansmen without cause; but she only shook her head, wearily. “I keep telling you, Hobbits aren’t made for war. The vast majority of us would rather run until their feet wear down to nubs than take up arms. We’re small, weak, largely defenseless; any threat, even a possible threat, even an imaginary threat, is taken as seriously as a blade to our throats, because they have hardly any way to know the difference!” The bitterness in her voice had given way to frustration toward the end of the sentence, but as soon as she seemed to realize how much her voice had risen, her shoulders slumped. When she spoke, it was with none of the animation she’d had before.

“…You’re right.” He startled, but she didn’t seem to notice. “It’s not fair. It’s paranoid, and fearful, and the only reason we haven’t gone extinct. It’s in the nature of every race, I think, to veer away from danger, to close ranks against those who don’t belong. My mother was among the minority of Hobbits who’d eliminate a threat rather than run from it. So am I.” She shrugged sadly. “It’s as much in my nature to fight what threatens me as it was in my father’s to hold his ground until he had no other choice but to fight or flee. But that I would choose violence so easily means that I am a danger. Most Hobbits hardly ever lift anything but farming tools; they’re about as dangerous as toddlers. They have nothing but their feet to protect them. They rely on those with more capability, but at the same time, they can’t help but fear us.”

For a few seconds, he just watched her thoughtfully. “You sound as though you pity them.”

“I do. Fear is…” She shook her head. “Fear is horrible. I know what it is to be afraid, to live in fear, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But I can at least defend myself if I need to. They can’t.”

He had no response to that, and after a few moments, she dropped back to walk beside someone else; he heard Dwalin’s low rumble, but couldn’t make out his words or hers, and the Heirs greeted her a moment later. He didn’t know what to make of her. He’d thought, he’d hoped, that she’d been lying about how little she wanted money, but every interaction seemed to only prove him more wrong. And what she’d said of how Hobbits viewed her—

She had to be lying, but he’d thought that before. But she had to be; no race could be so merciless. But fear could do such things to good people. How many people had rejected the refugees from Erebor because they were afraid they were cursed? He’d always loathed those sorts, thought them no more than scum, but she pitied them? Was it even possible to pity people who shunned you? Never in his life would he have thought the answer could ever be ‘yes’, but this girl turned everything on its head. If it were anyone else, he would have said ‘no’ without a second’s doubt. But it was her, and he couldn’t be sure either way.

She was clearly bitter over her treatment, but she defended their reasons. She was clearly wounded by the rejection, but she claimed to pity her abusers. She seemed more likely to walk straight into Smaug’s jaws than to return to her ‘family’, but she minimized their abuse of her.

She made no sense.

But he couldn’t help but believe that she honestly did care for Dwalin.

He didn't like it, didn’t like watching his little brother put his heart in jeopardy again…

But he wouldn’t put a stop to it. He’d watch for any signs of something being wrong, but if this was what Dwalin wanted, so be it.

He only prayed it wouldn’t end in yet another heartbreak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, they're out of Rivendell and the plot can pick up!  
> And hopefully, Balin doesn't seem ooc with how paranoid he is, but I feel like he would lean toward that, realistically. Thorin does too, obviously, but with Balin, I think it would be more rational and less prejudicial. But, at the same time, he only has Dwarves to base his expectations on, and she is *not* a Dwarf. Misunderstandings are kind of inevitable.  
> Also, does anyone else get really annoyed at Elrond for ignoring the fact that Smaug poses an inescapable (if eventual) threat to as much of Middle-Earth as he likes? I get that purposefully waking him up is stupid unless you have a sure-fire way to kill him, but still. That's like leaving a grizzly bear in your garage for months because you're afraid he'll hurt someone if you try to move him.  
> Just out of curiosity, is anyone getting 'sassy teenager' vibes from Belda? That's kind of what I was aiming for. She's basically an (almost) eighteen-year-old, after all, and too smart not to comment on stupidity as she sees it.  
> À demain!  
> (P.S., I don't know if literally anyone would agree with me, but my headcanon is that Dwarves are naturally much more logical than Men or Hobbits (aside from when they lose their tempers) to go along with them being natural engineers/architects, so by and large, they approach everything with a little instinct and a lot of forethought (when possible), which would be why their decision-making abilities might not be the best if they don't have time to weigh their options. *coughThorinfightingAzogcough* On the flip side, Hobbits tend to rely much more on their instincts (although they can be logical, too), to go along with their preferences being for more-art-than-science disciplines like cooking and gardening, which is why they tend to be very good in a crisis and moderately-to-very bad if they have time to overthink things. My two cents.) (^u^)


	12. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night on Misty Mountain  
> (edit: Sorry, I just realized I forgot to finish the formatting.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second section is one of the few that I had a specific song in mind while I wrote (read: listened to that song on repeat for the entire time I wrote it), and I linked to it on iTunes on the first word. If you can, I highly recommend listening to it as you read, but it's your choice. The name/artist is in the end notes.

“So if ‘hunter’ is ‘utas’, ‘hunter of’ would be ‘utasu’?”

Ori nodded; he made Belda think of a stork-Hobbit she’d seen once, head bobbing up and down as he walked. “And the word for fresh game is ‘tasith’, so—”

“So ‘utasu tasith’ would be the title?”

Ori’s face lit up in a broad grin; they’d been on the road for five days now, and there’d only been a handful of opportunities for her to get the promised lessons. But he’d only had to correct her pronunciation once or twice so far, and he said she was doing well. She wasn’t sure she actually believed him; Sindarin was proving difficult for him, and she’d been trying to spare his feelings.

But at the moment, the Company was winding through a narrow section, and they were taking advantage of the opportunity to have their longest lesson yet; every time he told her a word in Khuzdûl, she translated it into Sindarin for him, and vice versa. It wasn’t until several minutes later that anything disrupted their system.

“Wait, those are the only words for family? ‘Gwanur’ and ‘herth’?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Curious, she tilted her head. “Are there more words in Khuzdûl?”

He nodded, still looking a little indignant; she couldn’t help but guiltily empathize. Elves didn’t see the need for more words than just ‘relative’ and ‘household’, respectively; as Hobbitish had no less than fifteen synonyms for family before more specific terms (such as father, daughter, cousin, etc.) came into play, Belda found the Sindarin offerings stifling. ‘Herth’, which could mean ‘troop’ as well as ‘household’, was the closest word she’d found in the language to ‘pack’, but even so, it had the implication of a group held together by employment rather than necessity or any particular loyalty, and was thus a paltry substitute.

“Khuzdûl has ‘nudd’, that’s ‘relative’; we don’t really have a word for ‘household’, but there’s ‘baraf’ and ‘sankhalf’ for ‘family’.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well,” he took a moment to choose his words, but she didn’t have to wait long. “‘Sankhalf’ is slang, really, but it means something like ‘family I wouldn’t prefer’, and then ‘baraf’ is the proper word, it means ‘blood-kin’. Or ‘clan’, I suppose, or ‘line’. It depends on the context.”

“So—” Thorin interrupted her, calling for them to hurry up, and the discussion was lost as they came within earshot again of the others. But she kept thinking over what he’d told her, even while she talked with Fíli and Kíli; he’d told her other words, as well, and she smiled as she put a few together. _‘Barafu id-Amrâb. Clan of the soul._ ’

 

[Several](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/i-go-to-the-barn-because-i-like-the/129649178?i=129649456) nights later, she hid behind a boulder, just out of earshot of the Company as she choked back tears. She’d thought Nori cared, she’d thought the thief was at least somewhat accepting of her, at the very least, but obviously she’d been wrong. The moonless night was a blessed relief to her still-aching eyes and head, but she hid her face nonetheless, wanting nothing more than to hide so completely she’d never be found until she wanted to be. Until she didn’t feel quite so much as though she’d never be warm again.

“Belda?” Dwalin’s voice made her breath hitch as she looked up involuntarily; he wasn’t in sight, and she hunched in on herself, torn between internally screaming for him to leave and desperately hoping he’d find her. The dichotomy made her already-unsteady emotions even more overwhelming, and her sobs drowned out the sound of his approach until he was pulling her into his arms. “What happened, kit?”

Confused, her tears slowed; he’d been well within earshot, and he’d even been walking towards her, so he must have heard. “W— What?” She clung to him even as she drew away just enough to meet his equally-confused eyes; physically, he was far warmer than a Hobbit, but there was also an addictive warmth just in knowing that he was there, he was holding her, he’d come after her.

“What happened?”

His face blurred as her eyes filled. “Didn’t you hear what—” _‘He, not she’_ , “What he said?”

“Of course, kit. If I hadn’t, I’d be asking how many different colors you wanted him to be in the morning. But he didn’t say anything any of us wouldn’t’ve said.”

Dwalin’s words cut her to the quick, a sharp, throbbing heartache driving out all the warmth she’d recovered in his arms, and she pushed away from him as her sobs returned tenfold. Tears obscured her sight, but she felt him catch her wrists as she struggled, and despite how much she fought, she couldn’t compete with Dwarven strength; within a minute or two, he was holding her to his chest, restraining her much the same way she might restrain a small child. His hold was gentle, but unyielding, and she exhausted herself within another few moments; the entire time, he was saying something, she could feel the vibrations in his chest, but she couldn’t hear him over the roaring in her ears until she finally gave up and slumped against his chest, still sobbing.

For a few seconds, she hated him. She hated the way he wrapped his arms around her, more securely than she’d felt since she was a fauntling; she hated the way she could smell the salt of his tears as he shushed her, rocking gently back and forth; she hated that even after he’d so hurt her, he still smelled like pack, like home and safety and comfort. Most of all, she hated that despite how deeply his words had hurt her, she didn’t feel the slightest twinge of a phantom instinct. No urge to claw at him, no intangible tail lashing behind her, nothing but the flood of too many emotions to name that she remembered from her fauntling years, before she was old enough to understand why her Mum was never home.

Her Da had held her while she fought him more than once, though then she’d been trying to run after her Mum, not running from a man she was beginning to care for more than she should.

Eventually, her sobs quieted, and he spoke again, shaking voice thick as it rumbled through her. “I don’t understand, kit. What did I say?”

A spark of that same childish rage rekindled, and she pushed at him again, but only weakly; thinking of her father, and realizing the connections both between his behavior and Dwalin’s, and the fond respect she had for both of them, had stolen away most of her anger, and left her with an old pain. “You—”

A number of words more colorful than accurate rushed forth at once, and left her speechless while Dwalin pleaded with her, desperate and brokenly. “No, please, kit, tell me what I said?”

She hadn’t succeeded in getting away from him, by any means, but she’d gained enough distance that she could, and now did, meet his eyes. “You—”

But there was no condemnation in his face, only heartbreak, mixed liberally with confusion. He didn’t look like someone who’d called her worthless, and yet he had. And yet he looked as though she were speaking a different… language. Her lessons with Ori had taught her that there were some words that meant slightly different things to Dwarves. Could this…

Breath hitching, she swallowed back some of her tears. “W— what does—” She froze for a moment, unable to force the word past her lips. Swallowing thickly, she started over, fingers curling in his fur jacket; the familiar texture made it no easier to keep her composure, but did remind her of a time when the feeling of her parents’ fur had been as grounding as Dwalin’s scent was now. “To Dwarves, what does— does,” angry at her own cowardice, she spat the word, “Halfling mean?”

If anything, Dwalin’s bewildered frown deepened. “Hobbit. What else would it mean?”

Relief flooded through her quickly enough to leave her feeling like nothing more than a marionette who’d just had her strings cut; she pitched forward, burying her face in his chest as she tightened her grip on him, and he enfolded her into his arms without an instant’s hesitation. Guilt followed the relief swiftly, though, guilt that she’d fought him, guilt that she’d taken his words at face value, guilt that she’d hated him, even for a few seconds. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I was stupid.”

She was barely aware of speaking, but even if she had been, she wouldn’t have expected him to immediately jerk as though she’d stabbed him, and to cup her face in both hands, drawing back just enough to meet her eyes, his own intense and pained. “No, not stupid, never stupid, kit.”

Gently, he touched his forehead to hers, and she leaned into it as her eyes fell shut. She didn’t know what it meant to Dwarves, though she suspected it meant more than it did to Hobbits, as she’d only seen immediate family use the gesture, and even then only rarely. Coming from Dwalin, it felt as tender as one of his hugs, and all the more dear for its rarity.

They sat like that, unmoving, for nearly a minute, she thought, before he quietly spoke, in a tone as gently unyielding as his arms had been before. “But what does it mean to Hobbits?”

She couldn’t help but flinch, badly enough that he tightened his arms around her, but she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Feeling tears beginning to build, she tried to escape his hold again, turning away from him to try and hide the pain she knew would be all over her face; gently, he cupped her cheek in one huge hand, and she fell still, apart from tiny tremors she couldn’t quite stop. She didn’t fight as he turned her head back toward him, but she didn’t open her eyes until he swiped his thumb over her cheek, his other hand trying to tuck her hair behind her ear. It sprung back as soon as his hand moved, of course, but his eyes didn’t leave hers.

Pain in his voice, he murmured, “It matters to you.” Her breath hitched, but she only bit her lip; one word and she’d be sobbing, she could tell. His eyes shone in the starlight, and he held her eyes. “Please, Belda.”

The raw anguish in his tone did break her, and she shut her eyes rather than see his reaction. “It means someone who’s half a person— a— someone who’s infertile, ora cripple, or s— something.” Or someone without a soul-form.

Shock was clear in his tone, as was hurt, when he finally spoke. “And you thought I could say that of you? That any of us could?”

“Nori did,” she sobbed, “And then you said any of the Company would say the same, and— I’m sorry!”

Again, she pitched forward to cry into his chest, and salt suffused the air as he tightened his arms around her, one hand rising to the nape of her neck; instantly, her tremors stilled, and she felt her sobs weaken, just slightly. He didn’t seem to notice, but then, he hadn’t the other times, either. “No, kit, how could you think we would mean it?”

It was a fair question, she knew it was, and by all rights, she should’ve discarded the idea as soon as Nori had used that word, but… “They did.” He gave a quiet, questioning grunt, and she shifted position to better hide her face and let her tears seep into his chest. “Camellia an— and Longo. They used to— used to say it would be better if I’d been a Halfling than—” Than a predator. “—than half a Took.” He inhaled sharply, rage entering his scent for a moment, and she hurried to reassure him, “I didn’t believe them, don’t believe them, but—” But even she could hear the half-lie in her words; the next rushed out on a flood of tears. “But they said it over and over, and if I argued, they locked me in my room and they wouldn’t let me out for days and—”

And that had been what was truly unbearable: the isolation. Going for days on end without ever seeing another face, sometimes without even hearing a soul.

His arms tightened around her, his hand on her neck, but even so she sobbed. It was long minutes before she was able to calm herself, and all the while, Dwalin just held her, his head laid on hers, his scent surrounding her and sinking into her hair along with tears of his own. Even once she got ahold of her emotions once again, she couldn’t find it in herself to stop clutching his jacket; she’d grown out of such childish behavior long before the Winter, but he didn’t seem to mind. There was always the possibility that Dwarves viewed such things differently, but for the moment, she didn’t really care about anything but that she was safe and warm and a man (possibly the person she respected most in the Company, and certainly the one she most looked up to) she really needed to stop thinking of as fatherly showed no signs of forgetting his promise to never abandon her.

Finally, once she was completely calm again, he chucked her chin lightly and raised his brows in a wordless question. She nodded, rubbing her eyes. He sighed. “You need to tell the others when we go back, kit.”

Her heart thudded at the thought, and she shied away from the very idea; it was bad enough that she’d embarrassed herself overreacting like she did. “Couldn’t you tell them?”

He answered her pleading look with a matter-of-fact nod. “I could. But you’re going to.”

“But—”

He cut her off firmly. “No, kit. This is too important. Do you want me to explain and muddle it all up?”

She frowned; the way he stressed ‘me’, as though there were no one worse suited, irked some instinct she hadn’t previously been aware of. (She could tell: if she’d been in drake-form, her hackles would’ve raised.) “You wouldn’t muddle it.”

“Yes, I would.”

She shook her head decisively, thinking of his apology just after their arrival in Rivendell. “No, you wouldn’t.”

As she held his eyes, she could just see the hints of an old pain; slowly, he shook his head. “…You think too much of me, kit.”

Her frown deepened. “You don’t think enough of yourself.” He huffed out a mirthless laugh, shaking his head, but didn’t argue further.

As he stood, he just lifted her with him rather than push her away, and set her on her feet once he was on his; he took her hand in his, hers so tiny in comparison that she may as well have been a fauntling, and led the way back to the camp. The stars lit the night enough that she could just make out where she was placing her feet, but the campfire still stuck out like… well, a Hobbit among Dwarves. She stopped dead in her tracks, entirely involuntarily, and Dwalin only took a single step before he turned to her with a concerned frown. “Kit?”

Slowly, she dragged her eyes up to his, away from the fire and the silhouettes around it, and her voice was so small that she barely even recognized it. “Do I have to do this?”

It was humiliating, and her face was probably all blotchy and swollen, and Kíli was there, and (a large) part of her just wanted to pretend it had never happened— But Dwalin’s expression softened, and he ran his free hand over her curls before he knelt down to press a gentle kiss to her forehead, his eyes almost exactly level with hers when he drew back. “Yes, kit. But I’ll stay beside you all the while.” His face blurred slightly, but she could still make out his soft smile. “I told you: I’m never letting you be alone again.”

Closing her eyes against the ever-increasing blur, she leaned forward until her forehead thunked (slightly painfully) against his; he chuckled quietly at her wince, but pressed his hand against the nape of her neck again. He didn’t move, but as soon as she did, he drew back.

“I won’t help you,” he warned, “but I’ll be right beside you. All right?”

Sniffling, she nodded, resolve filling her; it didn’t drive out the fear, but it made it a little more manageable, at least. “All right.”

 

Belda held her collar tightly shut with one hand, the other trailing over the slick rock wall to her left; her jacket couldn’t get much more soaked, but even so, the wind and chill carried with the rain were pervasive, and she wanted to keep as warm as she could. At the moment, the only part of her that was warm was her shoulder under Dwalin’s hand; with how slippery the ledge was, and the fact that it was narrow enough at times that even she had to walk heel-to-toe, he hadn’t let go of her once since they’d set out that morning.

If he hadn’t been so worried, she was fairly sure she would have fallen at least four times by then; the wind was fierce and she was light, and while she’d been able to keep her footing well enough dry, a rain-soaked cliff face had no grass to dig her feet into, no branches or bushes to catch hold of if she slipped. She’d been fine on similar paths the day before, but, “This bloody rain.”

Her grumble had barely been audible, even to her, but her nose was nearly touching Bofur’s back, and he called jauntily back, “Cheer up, lass, could be worse!”

She resisted the urge to punch him. Barely. “Yeah? How?”

The challenge had barely left her lips when her foot hit an unexpected slant and she overbalanced; Dwalin hauled her upright as she squeaked, but her heart still raced. It was a very long way to fall. Drily, Bofur suggested, “You could be afraid of heights.”

It was a shame he couldn’t see her glare. It was truly impressive, even in a group that included Thorin Glare-y-shield. “I am not afraid of heights.” In fact, she loved heights, normally; a dip in the path made it all too easy to see just how far it was to the bottom of the valley, and she swallowed thickly. “Falling, on the other hand…” Specifically, falling without wings to catch her.

Bofur shook his head, the motion sending droplets of icy water directly onto her face. “If you would just wear boots—” It was an old argument, and she had no patience for it at the moment.

Sharply, she cut him off. “I’d be even clumsier and wouldn’t be able to find my footing at all, compared to occasionally as is. Drop it, Bofur.”

A low chuckle rumbled behind her, and Dwalin squeezed her shoulder lightly. Out of habit, she turned to smile up at him, forgetting the unstable ground; her foot slipped, her momentum spun her until she was facing the valley, and then she was leaning too far over the edge to correct herself. Terror froze her tongue in the instant before Dwalin hauled her back, Bofur helping him by grabbing her other arm, and even once her back was flat against the rock face behind her, Dwalin’s arm over her collarbone to keep her from slipping again, she still couldn’t force out any words.

She would’ve liked nothing more than to stay there until she caught her breath, but then Dwalin roared a warning, “Look out!”

Following his eyes, she was just in time to see a boulder as big as Bag-End flying through the air toward the cliff above them. The impact shook the mountain, and Dwalin pulled her toward him, stepping partially in front of her and bending his head over hers even as Thorin bellowed distantly, “Take cover!”

Rocks as big as her head or bigger rained down around and past them; she was fairly sure that she felt Dwalin wince as though he’d been struck, but nothing hit her. No sooner had the rockfall ceased than she saw a part of a distant peak break off and stand. Balin yelled from somewhere to her left, but she couldn’t look away from the giant. It broke a piece as big as the first boulder, as big as its head, off of the stone it had been lying on, and hurled it past the Company.

Belda’s heart was racing, and she felt smaller than she ever had, even than when the Trolls had had her; whatever these giants were (Stone Giants, according to a very excited Bofur), they were truly massive. Even in drake-form, she might, might come up to their waists, and perhaps not even that high. She hadn’t lied to Balin, she did pity her prey-relatives, but there’d been more than one occasion when the difference in their natures had led her to sneer at their timidity. Now, faced with creatures almost as large to her as her drake-form was to ordinary Hobbits, for the first time, she understood why they’d acted as they had. Now she understood how they must have felt to even catch a hint of her scent. Now, now she truly did pity them.

“Hold on!” Dwalin’s bellow nearly deafened her, but she didn’t fight as he hauled her to his side. She just saw him grab hold of Ori on his other side, and quickly, she turned to wrap her arms around his waist; the more secure, the better, and just in time, as a rain of debris broke off most of the ledge they were standing on.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

As though the Mahal-cursed Giants weren’t enough (and really, why couldn’t they have stayed in fables and bedtime stories, where such things were supposed to), a split in the rock appeared under his feet, and grew too quickly for him to do anything but move away from it, toward Óin, behind him. “What’s happening?!”

At the same moment, Fíli shouted, “Kíli, grab my hand!”

Automatically, with habit born of decades, he made to obey his sister, but he was too slow, and ice filled his veins as she was carried all-too-quickly away. All he could do was watch as his Nen’ar grew smaller, farther from him than she’d ever been but at home. Rocks crashed down in the space between them, but he barely noticed, still holding her eyes, seeing the same agony there that pounded in his chest. An odd, animal sort of call nearly deafened him from above, and he looked up involuntarily. What he saw made no sense, and it wasn’t until nearly the last second that he realized that they were all standing on the kneecaps of a third Giant.

To be precise, he realized a split second before the second Giant head butted theirs with enough force to send it pitching to the side, and them nearly off the ledge.

He nearly lost his balance, felt himself start to slip for a single, horrible instant, but Óin grabbed hold of his cloak and steadied him; a second later, the both of them were knocked off their feet by a massive impact, and they only just scrambled after the others in time to avoid being swept away with the Giant again. Their Giant pushed again to its feet and swung at the second, which ducked surprisingly quickly; a shout from his left was just in time for him to duck as the first Giant broke off a piece of the mountain only a stone’s throw away from him.

But he barely noticed for long enough even to duck; as soon as he did, he looked back toward the other two, desperately straining for a glimpse of his sister. Their Giant landed a tremendous blow on the second, but the third hurled its boulder at their Giant; its head plunged down toward them in a terrifying arc, and impacted the cliff just above them. Stones rained down, but Kíli could only watch for Fíli.

The decapitated cadaver twisted oddly, sending Fíli’s half of the Company sailing past Kíli’s eyes, nearly close enough to touch—

His heart stopped—

Belda was in the other group, huddled against Dwalin even as her feet dangled over the drop— he hadn’t thought, hadn’t remembered—

The thought of losing Fíli had sent a blade through his gut, but the sight of Belda sent a knife through his heart; the agony was enough to make him cry out, and he only realized as he heard it that he’d screamed her name.

Belda and Fíli’s group sailed even further past, until they were barely more than blurs in the rain, then stopped; his heart gave a single, frantic beat before their movement resumed, this time straight toward the mountain face.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Being batted to and fro like a child’s plaything was terrifying enough to put the fear of Mahal into any Dwarf, but having Belda with him through it, feeling her lose her footing, barely grabbing her before the cliff rushed toward them, that put the fear of Eru himself into Dwalin. There was no time for rational thought or contemplation, only a wordless, instinctive prayer as he wrapped his free arm around her tightly enough to bruise: _‘Eru, not her_ ’.

The briefest glimpse of an outcropping of rock just to the side of them was all he had time to see before the impact.

His head pounded, spots of light flickering over his vision as he pushed upright; something was wrong, something was gone, more important than anything—

He bolted upright just as Thorin came into view, and scanned the felled group in aquick sweep, but the pit in his gut only strengthened. “Where’s Belda?!”

He’d spoken at the same moment as Bofur, but the miner was the first to spot her.

* * *

 

Belda

 

She heard Dwalin, of course, and Bofur and Thorin, but response was impossible: with her heart and stomach both in her throat, she had no breath for words.

The impact had jolted Dwalin’s arm loose, her own grip failing, and she’d slipped before she could catch herself. She nearly hadn’t caught herself at all, and the ledge was too slick for her to do anything but try, hope, and pray to keep her grip. There was no footing she could find; hot tears building in her eyes, she looked down to find something, anything, she could grip, but all she saw was a fall long enough to kill even a Dwarf, even a dragon, and unequivocally a Hobbit. Ori’s stricken face darted into view above her just as a petrified sob caught in her throat and loosened her grip just enough for her to lose it; she caught herself again, barely, and couldn’t help but cry out as her arm protested, painfully, bearing her entire weight.

Ori and Bofur both reached down to her, shouting for her to grab their hands, but she couldn’t reach them; she couldn’t see them, but she could hear Kíli and Dwalin both shouting for her as well, and for one hopeless, despairing instant, she only thought, _‘I wish I could have seen them once more_ ’.

A sob tore from her throat—

Her grip weakened—

Her vision blurred until she couldn’t tell Bofur from Bombur—

A dark blur moved beside her; a huge hand encircled her forearm and wrenched her up far enough for Ori and Bofur to grab hold of her and yank her into their arms; a distressed shout had her lurching toward it, toward the ledge again, as her entire being screamed for an instant, _‘PACKDANGERLEADERSAVEHIM!’_

The hands on her held firm and kept her from doing anything but leaning forward; her mind caught up an instant later and realized that Dwalin had already grabbed hold of Thorin and was heaving him up with no small amount of difficulty; part of her acknowledged that trying to save him herself would’ve only gotten them both killed, but most of her didn’t care, and she strained forward to try and see what was happening.

A moment later, Dwalin and Thorin were both on solid ground again, and the tension dissolved quickly enough to leave her feeling almost empty, and completely exhausted as she slumped heavily back against her pack-mates. Eyes half-lidded, she barely had any warning before Dwalin yanked her into his arms, but she only returned his hold as tightly as she could, and closed her eyes to better relish the feeling of his voice rumbling brokenly through her. “I thought I lost you.”

For a heartbeat, she couldn’t want for anything more. Except maybe for Kíli to be holding her, too.

Then Thorin spoke. “She’s been lost ever since she left home.” She jerked away from Dwalin to meet Thorin’s eyes, and felt a part of her soul scream in wordless agony at the hate she saw there. “She should never have come. She has no place amongst us.”

She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even close her mouth or steady her ragged breathing. She could only watch as Thorin walked deliberately away, and took any hope she’d had of ever being part of his pack with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: all Khuzdûl in this section is straight from The Dwarrow Scholar. Some of it might be a little out of date, but it is all his stuff. (Nen'ar means 'supreme sister', btw.)  
> I hope it wasn't confusing, skipping the actual scene where Nori calls her a Halfling. My original plan was to write that, but then I got stuck for like a month trying to get it, so I just gave up and moved on. Also, the reason I keep mentioning that Dwalin keeps putting his hand at the nape of her neck (and especially how she reacts to that in this chapter) is because foxes (like most, if not all mammals) carry their young by the scruff of their neck while they're tiny. There's actually a specific reflex that gets the kit/puppy/kitten to curl up and stay still, and there's even something similar with human babies. Anyway, there was a study (with mouse babies, I think) that showed that the pups' heart rates went way down when their parents picked them up by the scruff, and I think Hobbits (in this 'verse) would have something similar. Especially since for a biped, the back of your neck is one of the most vulnerable places on your body, and feeling someone you trust covering it and literally watching your back would be very soothing, especially for someone as young as Belda.  
> Enjoy the cliffhanger! (Although, let's be honest: you all know what comes next. I do think I can surprise you a little, though.)  
> À Lundi!  
> (I Go to the Barn Because I Like the, by Band of Horses. First time I heard it was watching Psych, while the main character's girlfriend (at the time) breaks up with him. Very, very well-done scene, and very emotional, and I think the emotion of that just kind of stuck. Maybe it's just me, but I still think this song is perfect for that sick, sour feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you're upset.) (^u^)


	13. Dwalin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misty Mountains pt. 2

The pure anguish on Belda’s face was enough to make Dwalin’s eyes spark with tears he refused to let fall, and he cupped her face in both hands, desperate to make that pain fade away. “No, kit, he doesn’t mean it, he just—”

“Dwalin!” Involuntarily, he looked to his King, but he couldn’t move, but he couldn’t stay—

How could he choose between his King and his Nâthu-ib-Banth?

Light pressure on his chest drew his eyes back down, and he had to force himself to let go of Belda as she pushed him away; her head was down, but her voice was chillingly toneless. “Go.” He hesitated for an instant, but she just pushed him again. “He needs help. Go!”

 _‘The pack comes first_.’ He’d remembered that, remembered everything she’d said that night, but he’d never really understood, not like this. He was a soldier. He understood sacrificing one’s life to save another, he understood obeying a commander no matter what, but this, this had been what she’d meant. Not a noble self-sacrifice, like Thorin’s risking his life to save her, but doing whatever was necessary, no matter how it killed her inside. No matter how it killed him. Ori stepped forward and gave him a reassuring, if worried, nod, and Dwalin forced himself to move away from her, to turn away. He followed Thorin heavily, but did shove the hugging Heirs toward her on his way.

Thorin had gained a fair amount of ground during Dwalin’s hesitation, enough that when Dwalin finally caught up, the King was inspecting the far end of a long cave. Every step Dwalin had taken away from his daughter (formal adoption be blasted, she was his daughter and she was in pain because of the Dwarf before him) had only heated his blood further, and now it was only with conscious effort that he kept himself from slamming his King into a wall until he’d learned his lesson.

Thorin was his King, and his friend. For Thorin, Dwalin would suffer anything. For Thorin, he would walk into Smaug’s jaws— Mahal, for Thorin, he would walk into the jaws of Morgoth him-bloody-self.

But Belda’s suffering was something else entirely. She was a traumatized child, more so than some soldiers he knew, and she was alone. Her parents were dead, half her family had abandoned her, the other half had treated her like a rabid animal. The only friend she’d had outside the Shire hadn’t even known that her parents were gone until she told him herself, and even now, Dwalin knew that she didn’t feel as though she was truly a part of the Company.

She’d thrown herself into her training, and at first he’d only chalked it up to her excitement over having signed the contract. Then he’d realized that her enthusiasm never abated. No matter how long she worked, how hard she worked, how sore she was in the morning, she never gave so much as a hint of a complaint, except once. She hadn’t meant him to hear it, he barely had heard it, but just before she’d exited her room one morning, she’d tossed a too-cheery chirp to Fíli: ‘Anything to be useful!’

Add that to how easily she’d thought the Company thought as little of her as her ‘family’ had, and the fact that she’d thought the Company despised her for nothing more than glares during the Troll debacle, and Dwalin’s rage reached a new peak as he imagined what she would think after being told flat out that she wasn’t part of the pack.

Thorin barely glanced at him, intent on securing the cave, but he looked back after a moment, shock just visible through his naturally gittish looks. Normally, when Dwalin was angry on Belda’s behalf, he reined the emotion in, aware that she would misconstrue it. But Belda wasn’t here. No, the only person here was the reason for Dwalin’s anger in the first place.

Thorin was his oldest and dearest friend. Thorin was his King. But Thorin had hurt an innocent girl, Dwalin’s daughter, beads or no. Thorin was going to get worse than a shock if Dwalin wasn’t careful.

“What,” he growled delicately, doing his best to keep from thrashing his friend, “did the Burglar do to deserve that?”

Thorin’s brows lowered into a dark glower, but Dwalin didn’t react; he could see the fear and worry under the anger, and he knew that Thorin likely hadn’t meant what he said, or if he did, he’d regret it in another day or so. But at the moment, Dwalin really didn’t care what Thorin had meant. He. hurt. his. daughter. “She could’ve died—”

“So could any of us.” Thorin gaped at Dwalin’s interruption; Dwalin icily pointed out, “Fall like that would kill anything, Man, Elf, Dwarf, or Hobbit.”

Thorin’s glare redoubled, and Dwalin’s patience snapped before the King had gotten more than a syllable out. “She—“

“—Had the bad luck to be the lightest one of us, which I’d think’d be good for a Burglar; or are you angry with her for not being able to hold onto rain-slicked stone with a single hand?”

“She’s a liability!” Automatically, at the back of his mind, Dwalin translated the unspoken statement: _‘we can’t protect her from everything._ ’

“She’s already saved all our skins once.”

“She’s a burden!” _‘We can’t provide what she needs on the road._ ’

“She’s the only reason we got that map translated, or do you think the weed-eaters would’ve helped us if she hadn’t asked it?”

“She’s not one of us!” At that, rational thought fled, almost entirely, from Dwalin’s mind, replaced with a primal need to defend his Chosen daughter.

But just enough sense remained for him to restrain himself, and he lowered his hands from where they’d begun to reach for Grasper and Keeper. For a moment, he only stared at Thorin, gathering his thoughts as best he could. Thorin waited, eyes just slightly widened. Finally, Dwalin nodded, and spoke quietly, though not gently. (As far from ‘gently’ as possible, actually.) “She signed the contract, which you gave her, same as us. She swore to fulfill ‘the Burglar’s’ duties, whether or not she knew it, the day she met us. She risked her neck to protect us, and nearly died in the process. She could have stayed with the Elves, where she would’ve been safe as houses, or even gone off on her own, and instead she chose to walk, with us, through the most dangerous territory in Middle-Earth, with a Mahal-cursed dragon waiting for her at the end of it.”

Thorin’s expression had closed off somewhere in the middle of Dwalin’s speech, but Dwalin had no patience to wait and see whether he felt guilty, was in denial, or was just being stubborn. “She—”

“Is there a problem here?” Dwalin’s next words died on his lips, and he turned to face Glóin with no small amount of vexation, but Thorin pushed past him before he could say a word.

“None. The cave will do for a night.”

Dwalin clenched his fists and focused on breathing for a moment. Glóin eyed him suspiciously, but waved someone in from out of sight. The Company tromped in, one by one, and Dwalin shoved his anger to the back of his mind. He’d have another chance for a ‘private word’ with Thorin sooner or later.

Belda’s entrance, looking somehow more bedraggled and drenched (and looking like a wet kitten between the mostly-unaffected Heirs) than he’d remembered, only strengthened his resolve. But before anything else, he needed to make sure his daughter didn’t freeze to death.

* * *

 

Belda

 

The second time she pushed Dwalin, he left; she was glad, truly, but the part of her that was still howling in agony grew a fraction. Mentally, she knew that Dwalin would have stayed if she hadn’t pushed him. Emotionally, she still felt as though she’d been wrung out and tossed to the wayside. Instinctually, she knew that that was it. Her commander had spoken. She had ‘no place’ in the pack. But she’d given her word. No one else had a hope of killing Smaug without heavy casualties, so she would stay. She would stop thinking she could ever be one of them. She would stop hoping for a place in Erebor after everything. She would keep herself apart from the pack, as was right.

‘Always separate, never pack. Bound without chain, chained without bond. So the shunned protector must be.’ They may not have known it, but she was their rándýr-verndari, their predator-protector, or would be in a few months. And she was bound to them. She couldn’t leave them, not now, not until she knew they’d be safe. Even if it killed her.

A motion at the side of her vision startled her into jumping slightly, and Ori caught her arms; warmth bled through her soaked sleeves even as her stomach sank into a frozen pit at the concern in his eyes. “Are you all right? How do you feel?”

 _’Bin-Baraf_.’ The Khuzdûl leapt to her mind as though she’d been born to speak it, and she didn’t realize until his eyes widened that she’d spoken aloud. Shame flooded through her in the next instant as she remembered that he was the one who’d be punished if she let it be known that she knew ‘the Dwarven Tongue’, and she ducked her head as her gut twisted; hot tears sprang forward, erased swiftly in the cold rain, and her gut twisted into knots.

Fíli and Kíli rushed to her a moment later, and she tried her best not to lean into their hands as they spoke over each other.

“Mahal, Belda, you’re freezi—!”

“—on’t listen to Uncle—

“—eed to get you out of the r—”

“—e’s just worried, and when he gets worri—”

“—ed, he gets angry, and when he gets an—”

“—gry, he says things he doesn’t mean, s—”

“—o don’t listen to Uncle, not now—”

“—not when he’s worked up—”

The two of them continued speaking over each other as they herded her towards the path Thorin and Dwalin had taken, but their words blurred into a baffling jumble.

She was shivering hard enough that she could barely think, though not entirely with cold, and she didn’t understand.

They were worried about her? And they were trying to protect her? But she wasn’t pack, Thorin had made that very clear, so why were they acting like nothing had changed?

The three of them were the last to enter the cave, in the end, and the sudden cessation of wind was almost as much of a shock as the smell that assaulted her. Kíli’s arm tightened around her waist, and he shifted his weight closer to her. “What’s wrong?”

Quietly, she answered, fighting the same phantom sensations as when she’d first seen the Trolls with her ponies. “This place reeks of Orc.”

Both of them stiffened, and Fíli hissed, “Tell Thorin!”

Hurt sparking through her, Belda snapped, “And he’ll believe me?”

They both flinched at that, but didn’t argue. If she’d told Thorin about Hobbit senses before then, then maybe he would listen now, but without context, and with the mood he was in, he was more likely to send her straight back to Rivendell if she said a word.

But she couldn’t just act like nothing was wrong. As Dwalin began to make his way toward them, expression dark, Belda muttered, “Don’t go to sleep, don’t let your guard down, and be ready to run; stone wouldn’t hold the scent this well if they weren’t frequent visitors.”

There was more she could’ve said, but then Dwalin moved past Bombur, fully into view, and the only thing she cared about was that she was miserable and his hugs were both amazing and warm. She barely took two steps before he caught her up into his arms, and all the misery the scent of Orc had driven out of her mind rushed back.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

A silent sob wracked Belda, mixed in with trembling that might have been chills, might have been delayed fear, or might have been the anguish from before; Dwalin couldn’t tell, and just adjusted his arms more securely around her. The memory of realizing she’d nearly fallen surged back, and he had to keep himself from holding her tightly enough to hurt; with how fragile Hobbits were, that meant he couldn’t hold her a quarter as securely as he wanted, so he bent his head over hers to try and assuage the part of his heart that was demanding he never let go of her.

Her breath hitched again, and he guessed what she might be thinking. Softly, he murmured into her waterlogged hair, “We’re not Hobbits, kit.”

Immediately, her breath hitched again, and she tightened her arms around him as she nodded fractionally. He doubted that she believed him. It went against everything she knew, and every instinct she had. Between that, what he’d heard and pieced together of her family, and how young she was, he doubted she’d be able to easily believe that they truly wouldn’t abandon her, not for years. So he’d just have to keep telling her until she did believe him.

Fíli and Kíli moved past him to Thorin, and Dwalin pivoted to give them a bit more room as they did. Then he kept pivoting, realizing there was a draft from the entrance and Belda was still shivering. He wound up facing the rest of the cavern, and so saw the incredulous looks from most of the Company, the disquieted looks from Balin and Dori, and the openly relieved looks from Nori, Ori, and Glóin. Thorin caught his eye for an instant, over Fíli’s head, and the ice there sent Dwalin’s blood boiling again. Belda squirmed for a moment, picking up on his emotion somehow, but stilled when he gently shushed her; his eyes never left Thorin’s, and so he saw the flicker of a sneer that crossed his friend’s face.

The solution, as it occurred to him a moment later, was obvious. But he couldn’t do it alone, not with Belda in the state she was in. Nori, Ori, and the Heirs would likely agree to help, if he asked, but he only needed one of them. Not Nori, Belda was still a bit tense around him after the misunderstanding a few days previous; not Ori: they were friends, but Dori seemed intent on matching them up, and Dwalin doubted either of them would thank him for inadvertently encouraging the overbearing Dwarf; that left Fíli or Kíli. Fíli was the obvious choice, but he seriously doubted that Thorin would be willing to let her out of arm’s reach for the rest of the night, after she’d almost been lost to them all.

Kíli. Well, he was big enough, and he certainly cared for Belda enough; anyone with eyes could see that they were smitten, unless that anyone also happened to be a rock-stubborn git of a King. Trouble was, they were young. After Erebor, Dwalin, like most of the survivors, had had other things on his mind, but he’d trained more Striplings than just the Heirs. Children in love were foolish. Boys in love were stupid. But was Kíli enough of a child, enough of a boy, to misbehave when she was in a state such as this?

…Dwalin wasn’t sure. But at least he’d be close at hand the entire time, if Kíli did prove to be a fool.

As Dwalin had thought, Thorin kept a close eye on Fíli when he released her, but Kíli moved toward him and Belda almost immediately. Neither he nor his sister opened their packs, though Fíli set hers down beside her; an arrested movement from ahead caught Dwalin’s eye, and he watched as Nori’s eyes flicked between Fíli, her pack, and the way Kíli’s hand kept twitching toward his sword. The thief’s indecision lasted a heartbeat, perhaps two, then he fastened his pack shut again and settled against the wall, one hand resting within reach of a hidden dagger. Ori pulled his journal out of his jacket, where it had miraculously stayed completely dry, but only glanced at it before stowing it away again, one eye on his older brother.

Kíli stopped a few paces away, eyes on Belda, but clearly at a loss for what to do next. Silently, Dwalin caught his eye and nodded to an empty spot just behind the Prince; catching his meaning, Kíli sat with his back to the wall, a large enough space beside him for someone to join him. As Thorin shot down the idea of a fire, Dwalin had to clench his jaw: on one hand, he agreed that it was a risk, especially as members of the Company not normally known for their paranoia were clearly on edge; on the other hand, Belda had progressed past shivers into full-body trembling, and Hobbits weren’t half as resistant to the cold as Dwarrow.

Carefully, Dwalin adjusted his hold on Belda so that he could scoop up her knees; the position must have been uncomfortable for her, but she didn’t so much as squirm. Satisfied he wouldn’t trod on her feet, Dwalin knelt at Kíli’s side, his back to the entrance. Then he set Belda down on Kíli’s lap.

Kíli shot him a panicked glance even as his arms rose to embrace her, and Belda barely needed any prompting to transfer her hold to the younger Dwarf. Part of it might have been the warmth: Kíli had removed his sodden jacket while Dwalin was repositioning Belda, so there wasn’t as thick of a barrier between them; younger Dwarrow also just tended to run warmer than older, so there was likely a marked difference between he and Dwalin.

Dwalin didn’t think that was the entire reason, though.

Settling close behind Belda, he gently coaxed all her hair to fall down her back, over Kíli’s arm; he was surprised by the length, though. When her hair was dry, the curls barely covered her shoulder blades. Now that it had been soaked (and thoroughly), and now that there was no immediate danger to distract him, Dwalin was stunned to see that even with a few stray curls keeping it from hanging completely straight, it nearly touched the floor.

Pushing aside his observations, he began to try and comb through it. Kíli hastily smothered a gasp; Belda hissed as Dwalin’s fingers caught on a tangle. Murmuring apologies, Dwalin eased his fingers free and worked more carefully; Hobbit hair was far more difficult than Dwarven hair. With Dwarven hair, the biggest problem was that it was as stubborn as its owner, and at worst, it might be too thick or too thin to hold a proper braid.

Hobbit hair, if Belda’s was an indication, was twice as difficult, confusing, and infuriating as any Dwarves’. It took him three times as long as it would have with a Dwarrowdam to sort out enough of her hair to even begin the braid, and he had to be far more gentle than he was used to. But after longer than he would’ve liked, he sat back and reviewed his work thoughtfully.

The braid started at her the center of her hairline, then moved straight back to the nape of her neck, before folding back in on itself to make up the majority of the volume. It was messier than he’d wanted, clumsier than one of the others could have done, but it would stay in place and out of her eyes. The style meant that nearly the entire mass was on the top or back of her head, but she tended to sleep on her side anyway, and it would at least be out of the way in a fight, which was largely what he was concerned about. Well, no, that wasn’t true.

It was what he was largely concerned about after his main objective: proving a point to Thorin. Deliberately, he met his King’s eyes over his daughter’s hair, and saw that Thorin understood exactly what Dwalin was declaring with his display.

Just as deliberately, Dwalin caught Kíli’s eye, gestured to Belda, and put a finger to his lips. It was obvious that Hobbits didn’t place the emphasis on hair that Dwarves did, and Dwalin suspected that she’d see as a friendly gesture, much like Kíli helping to warm her. But Kíli knew, as did Thorin and the rest, that while it was friendly, it meant more than that. That Dwalin had touched her hair at all had meant that he was staking a claim on her. That he’d chosen what had been his favored style as a Stripling had made it clear the sort of claim he was making.

She was his daughter, or as good as, and anyone who wronged her would have him to deal with.

But Belda wouldn’t understand that yet, and he didn’t want to try and explain until they were past the mess Thorin had made. She was dealing with enough as it was; there was no need to pile information on her all at once. It would take months to reach Erebor, and he had no intention of letting anything happen to her. They had time.

Nori smirked at him, then tilted his head slightly to meet Belda’s eyes. “Well, kitten?”

Dwalin opened his mouth, not sure whether he was going to ask what the thief meant or snap at him not to be so familiar with her, but was distracted before he could speak; something flashed through the air from Belda’s other side towards Nori. With a grin, Nori held the object up to the light and made a show of inspecting it; recognizing the shape of his battered whetstone, Dwalin couldn’t help slapping a hand to his pocket and verifying that it was empty.

Nori laughed and tossed it to him. “We’ll make a cat burglar of you yet, lass!”

As Belda’s shaking proved to be previously-silent giggling, Dwalin had to join her and Kíli in their laughter; in the morning, he’d probably have words with Nori about what he was teaching his daughter, but for now, Belda was happy. That was all that mattered.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

Kíli couldn’t bring himself to let go of his hilt. Between he and Dwalin, they’d just barely managed to convince Belda to rest, which had turned to dozing almost as soon as she laid down. She was curled up between them, her head pillowed on Dwalin’s leg, her feet pressed against Kíli’s thigh, and the only reason she’d agreed to rest at all was that Kíli had remembered that her sword, like Thorin’s, would glow if Orcs or Goblins came near. Her sword was lying on the ground between his and Dwalin’s knees, within reach of all three of their hands, if the need for it arose.

But she was still tense. He’d seen her asleep sev— er, once or twice, just by accident, he hadn’t been watching her sleep or anything weird like that, but he knew what she looked like when she was actually asleep. And here, now, she was on edge. Not that he could blame her; if the cave stunk as much as she said it did, it probably smelled as though they could be attacked at any moment. But still. He wished she could sleep properly.

Though, if he was wishing, then he also wished that they weren’t in an Orc-cave, that Thorin hadn’t been so harsh earlier, that Gandalf had caught up as quickly as he’d said he would, that they didn’t have months of travel ahead of them, that they didn’t have a dragon ahead of them, and, most of all, that they were all already safe and settled in Erebor.

Thorin would be ruling, Fíli and Balin beside him; Óin would be Royal Physician, and Glóin would be in the Guard, perhaps, or the army; Bombur would be Head Chef, Bifur and Bofur would be the most in-demand toymakers of the Kingdom; Ori would be a scribe, or perhaps Balin’s apprentice, where he’d be working with Fíli more often than not, while Dori would be… a weaver? Or maybe he enjoyed being a merchant. Either way, he’d be busy enough to give Ori room to be an adult, but he’d have time for his family, all of them would; Nori would be Spymaster, probably, which would drive Dwalin up the wall, since he would obviously be Captain of the Guard.

Kíli smiled, picturing it; Dwalin, in charge of half the Mountain’s fighting-force, recognized as a member of the nobility, and no one would dare insult him. Kíli hated it when he heard people sneering at Dwalin. What did it matter how he spoke or how he acted? He was one of the smartest Dwarves Kíli knew, even if he wasn’t one of the more intelligent, which was still debatable. Fíli and Kíli had learned early: if the problem involves fighting, go to Thorin; if the problem involves the law or protocol or manners, go to Balin; if the problem involves people, go to Dwalin. He had twice the empathy as Thorin and three times the sense as Balin, when it came to dealing with people who weren’t scribes, at least.

But once they reclaimed Erebor, no one would call Dwalin stupid again. Anyone who did would have the Company to deal with, and especially Belda. Kíli’s smile widened; he could picture her clearly, bouncing around the Mountain in Durin beads, bare feet, and dresses like she wore in Rivendell, and with throwing daggers on her. Not gaudy, oversized ones like the Elves had, not ones like Fíli’s, just barely too big for her to use with any real degree of accuracy, but ones sized just for her, with threads of gold in the hilt and an emerald topping each one, to match her eyes, although nothing could match her, not really, uvarovite might come close but it couldn’t have the same depths, and it couldn’t change colors like Belda’s did when she was in the sunlight, and sometimes it seemed like Belda’s eyes changed color with her moods, but they didn’t, really, he’d watched enough to know, and sometimes he just wanted to never look aw—

His breath caught as his thoughts jerked to a halt. If Belda stayed in the Mountain (and if Dwalin had his way, she would), and if she took Dwalin’s bead, became his daughter in law, not just in spirit…

She’d be as much nobility as he was. She’d be the daughter of one of the most respected Dwarves in Erebor, not to mention a hero in her own right, and wealthy, to boot. She’d be an eligible match for even nobility, even royalty. Even a Prince.

He had to stop himself from looking at her, reminding himself that her father was right there, even if he had seemed to endorse some attachment, at least, having Kíli hold her like that. But if everything went well reclaiming Erebor, if Belda stayed…

He cared for her. He liked her. He’d never really expected anything to come of it, no matter how much he’d hoped something would, because he knew that even for the second Heir of a King, some concessions to politics had to be made. His Amad had gotten a formal promise, in writing, from Thorin that neither of her children would be expected or encouraged to marry for political reasons, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a possibility. They were a Prince and Princess, and Erebor would need allies and trading partners to get back on its feet.

But a hero, scratch that, two heroes of Erebor, who’d gone against the odds and played integral parts in the Quest to reclaim their homeland…

That could work. That could, possibly, actually work. If they were Ones, of course, there wouldn’t be any argument, but that was unlikely. Or it was for him, at least. Dwarrowdams had Ones more often than not, while male Dwarrow, not so much. And they barely knew Ori, so there was a chance.

Maybe there was a chance that Belda was Kíli’s One. He could hope, at least. And even if she wasn’t, ‘the Burglar’ would have more acclaim than ‘one of the Company’. Maybe…

Maybe.

A surprised grunt from Dwalin broke him out of his thoughts, and a glance was all that was needed for him to recognize the dim blue glint in Dwalin’s eye. Biting back swears, he looked to the sword itself for confirmation, and heard Dwalin begin audibly swearing when the light strengthened. Belda’s feet poked into his leg for an instant before she bolted upright, and she grabbed her sword before Kíli’d even thought to call out. In the same instant, Dwalin bellowed a warning in Khuzdûl, deafening in the confined space, and chaos reigned for a few precious seconds as the entire Company, with the exceptions of Thorin, Fíli and Nori, flailed about, trying to figure out what was happening.

More than a few of them demanded answers, in Khuzdûl, for the alarm; wordlessly, Belda held out her brightly-glowing blade, and a couple of the Company drew their own weapons. Kíli began to follow suit, but Belda touched his arm lightly and he stilled, looking to her; her eyes were fixed on the floor, and suddenly widened. “Put your weapons away!”

She sheathed her sword as she shouted; something in her voice, something as commanding as even Thorin could be, made Kíli release his hilt immediately, even as he looked down and saw a crack forming in the sand; the only sound for a moment was that of weapons being replaced in their proper places; Thorin got out a single syllable of a snarl.

Then the floor dropped out from under them, literally.

Kíli was standing close enough to Belda that he managed to grab hold of her in the few seconds they were in free-fall, and so he took most of the impact when they collided with stone. It jarred him nearly enough to make him let go, but he held on, and felt her grab onto him, as well. But it wasn’t just the one fall. The next, a few seconds later, did dislodge them, and he quickly lost all sense of where she was, or even of which way was up as they were tossed about. By the time they fell into a rough-made half-cage, he was completely disoriented, and barely had an instant to see that he’d landed near Fíli before the rest of the Company plummeted down, culminating with Belda tumbling atop Bombur.

Fighting to stand, Kíli just had time to thank Mahal she’d had a relatively soft landing (unlike he and Fíli, on hard stone) before the Company on the other side of the pile began to shout warnings.

Goblins swarmed over them, as foul as he’d ever imagined them, but their grasping, clawing motions halted after only a moment, replaced by screeching as they backed away for an instant. Only an instant.

Their attack redoubled while Kíli tried to get room to draw his sword, but they didn’t attack the Dwarves nearer the front, only scrambled over them, still screeching, to instead fall upon Bombur—

No, Belda—

 _‘But why—_ ’

She shrieked as they dragged her away from the Dwarves—

 _‘No, not her—_ ’

Some of the Goblins, about as many as were holding Belda, resumed their assault of the Company—

 _‘She’s only a Hobbit, they’ll tear her apart—_ ’

Howls came from ahead as Belda fought against the creatures; she drew her sword—

 _‘Have to get to her—_ ’

More Goblins surged into the fight, successfully overpowering the Company—

 _‘Have to save—_ ’

Kíli could barely see anything, with all the Goblins holding him, but he saw Belda strike down three Goblins in a single blow—

 _‘Too many—_ ’

More Goblins replaced them, and tackled her, driving her back toward the edge of the platform—

 _‘NO—_ ’

She fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ducks under the torches and pitchforks* Well, at least you know she'll survive! Although, you'll have to wait until Wednesday to find out how. (^u^)  
> Notes: 1) 'Nâthu-ib-Banth' means 'daughter of the solemn promise' means he's made the decision to take care of her like his own, but it's not legal/official, just in his mind. 2) points to anyone who caught the Doctor Who reference at the end. It is subtle, but it's there.  
> The Company's reactions tomorrow. À demain!  
> (P.S., I haven't seen *any* fanart of bb!Dwalin with a mohawk. Why. Think of the cuteness!)


	14. Nori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Goblin Caves, Company Edition.

Nori had thought that Kíli’s howl as the giant swept past had been the most agonized thing she’d ever heard from someone who wasn’t actually dying. Maybe that’d been true.

Dwalin’s wail, now, put it to shame. Kíli’d sounded as though someone had ripped his heart out. Dwalin sounded as though someone had ripped him in half. Just listening to it made Nori feel as though her heart were being ripped out, and it didn’t even have anything to do with the fact that Dwalin was her One. It was a sound of pure agony, such that even the Goblins faltered for an instant.

But they rallied quickly, and progress resumed, despite Kíli. He was silent, not so much as a pained grunt leaving him, but Nori had never seen him fight so viciously. Even with what seemed to be half the army of Goblins restraining him, he still slowed their progress single-handedly. But once or twice, Nori caught sight of his face. All the agony in Dwalin’s voice was on Kíli’s face, coupled with a rage as fearsome as his Uncle’s.

It was funny. Kíli was silent, but fighting. Dwalin was keening, but not struggling in the slightest. Most of the Company was somewhere in between, though Ori’s struggles were half-hearted at best. And Nori…

She couldn’t. She couldn’t let herself think, couldn’t let herself feel. Emotion was a hazard in her line of work, and she’d long since learned to shove it away until she was in a position to process without getting herself killed. Even so, grief threatened to overwhelm her if she so much as remembered Belda’s smile from a few hours earlier, let alone how fond she’d grown of the kitten-burg—

She couldn’t. If she went down that path, she’d be useless. She couldn’t think of Belda, couldn’t think of anything but keeping her head.

In a way, she was glad she’d recognized Dwalin days earlier. If there had been anyone she would’ve expected least to be her One, it was the Guard-Captain who’d made her life so difficult. But then again, half the fun of thieving, anymore, was finding new ways to drive him up the wall. But in nearly a century of… acquaintance, he’d always just been Dwalin: the Guard, then Dwalin: the Captain, then Dwalin: the bane of her existence. She never in a lifetime would’ve expected him to be capable of the sort of gentle affection she’d seen him show Belda. But he had, and she’d seen, and the realization had settled over her like a shadow: he was her One.

She’d had to hide it immediately, using the days afterward to come to terms with it, and with her decision not to tell him. At least, not yet. Maybe after everything, but not yet. They had more pressing problems. But if she hadn’t realized then, if it had been him braiding Belda’s hair that nudged her into seeing it, she would have been still reeling when the floor dropped out, still useless now.

But progress gradually sped as Kíli slowly began to run out of steam— or she hoped that was why; the thought that wounds were impairing him rather than fatigue was almost too much to bear. But all too soon, the pathway opened up into a huge cavern, nearly big enough to be the hollow innards of the mountain, and every bit of visible space was crammed with Goblins. Horrible, discordant music began pouring from a platform above them, and the Goblins surrounding them began to sing as tunelessly as their fellows played. Nori blocked them out as best she could, doing her best to scan the space for exits, hiding places, anything they could use. She was aware that it was almost impossibly futile to try and escape, assuming they could even get away from their guards, but scheming helped her push away flashes of blood-flecked brassy hair, sightless green eyes, too-still hands that would never move again.

The Company was herded onto a relatively-small platform, dominated by a grotesquely obese Goblin, and one far taller and broader than most of their kind, at that. Dwalin and Kíli, now both still and silent, were restrained at the front of the group, but the rest of them were simply shoved together and left unbound, ringed by Goblins. Nori was off to the side, but she could see Kíli, Dwalin, and their guards from where she stood, which meant that she could see the way the Goblins holding them were visibly trembling.

Once the song was finished, the lead Goblin (who, Nori now realized, was wearing a makeshift crown) scowled down at the two Dwarves being presented to him. “What’s this, then?”

One of the Goblins holding Dwalin, a pointy-faced imp that stood a little under Nori’s height, spoke up, voice thin and shaking. “Dwarves, Your Malevolence; they had something with them, something—” It broke off with a wracking shudder. “Something horrible, deadly-deathly and cold. It killed three of us and fell out of sight, but these two were near it latterly, the pair of them.”

Nori exchanged glances with Balin and Dori; what was ‘it’? Maybe Belda’s letter opener? It was made by Elves, after all; maybe the Goblins knew it.

Grunting suspiciously, the king-Goblin stepped heavily forward and bent over Dwalin and Kíli, sniffing obnoxiously. Thorin and Fíli shouted, but barely a moment later, the king-Goblin stumbled back, face bloodless. “The Eater!” The Goblins shook; a few, too close to him for some reason, were sent flying off the side of the platform as he flailed his way back to the throne behind him. “Send scouts! Send guards! Get it out of the mountain and kill anything with it!”

A horde of Goblins rushed to obey, screeching in terror until long after they were out of sight. King-Goblin glared darkly at the Company, but his breath was quick and his hands trembled. “Who would dare come so armed into my kingdom?! Spies? Thieves?! Assassins?!”

His voice had climbed higher as he exclaimed, and the same Goblin as before, the pointy one, was quick to speak. “Dwarves, Your Malevolence. We found them on the front porch!”

Paling further, king-Goblin gestured wildly to the Company. “Well, don’t just stand there! Search them! Who knows what else they’ve brought!”

The Goblins set on them with a mania born of desperate terror, and after far longer than Nori would have tolerated if her brothers hadn’t been at risk, as well, they began going through the packs, including—

Picking up a particularly nice candelabra from the scattered contents of Nori’s pack, pointy-Goblin shrieked, “Elves! They’re working with Elves!”

King-Goblin growled something, but all Nori could focus on was the scathing glare Dori was sending her. Defensively, she feigned nonchalance; the candelabra, admittedly, had been a purely mercenary acquisition, but the cutlery and such had been so she could use it to teach Belda to pick pockets (both lifting and planting objects). Resisting the urge to cower, she shrugged faintly. “Just a couple of keepsakes.”

“What are you doing here?!”

Óin pushed ahead of Thorin, which led to one of the most ludicrous exchanges Nori had ever heard, and she distracted herself again by looking for exits. There was a narrow bridge off to the side of the platform, but if it connected, she couldn’t see how. Otherwise, there was only the path behind them. Without a miracle, Nori couldn’t see any way for them to escape unscathed.

“SHUT UP!” As far as Nori could see, only the Goblins still holding Kíli and Dwalin were unaffected by the bellow; the others all cringed back, and Bofur finally fell silent. “If they will not talk, we’ll make them squawk.” King-Goblin glowered at them; it wouldn’t have been half as intimidating as one of Thorin’s, except for the fact that Nori had no doubt that Thorin would never harm a single member of the Company. She also had no doubt that this foul excuse for a ruler would gleefully gut any of them. He raised his voice suddenly, and the surrounding Goblins cheered. “Bring up the Mangler! Bring up the Bonebreaker! Start with the youngest!”

Nori stiffened, her eyes flicking to Kíli against her will, but an instant later, she caught something out of the corner of her eye: Ori. He’d gasped silently, but exaggeratedly all the same, and king-Goblin pointed at him with unholy relish. “That one.”

“Wait!” Silence fell over the cavern, and Dwarves and Goblins alike edged out of the way so Thorin could move to the front of the group. The Company’s reaction, Nori had expected, but that the Goblins would also respond to the authority in his voice was surprising, and put Nori in mind of Belda’s shout just before they fell. She’d never spoken to any of them like that before, but somehow Nori had found herself sheathing her dagger before she’d even known what she was doing. She still didn’t understand why, but there was a good chance Belda had saved their lives, however she’d done it; if any of them had had their blades out, there was no telling what could have happened in the fall, who could’ve been hurt.

Nori had to tear her mind away from thoughts of her— of Belda, (just Belda, now), before her emotions got the better of her.

King-Goblin stilled, staring at Thorin as he came to a stop between Dwalin and Kíli. “Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thrór, would-be-king under the dragon-claimed-mountain. Is that why you would stoop to this? You must be desperate to use The Eater. Of course, without a crown or a mountain, you’re nobody, aren’t you? Of course you’re desperate. Nobody and nothing, except a bounty.” Sneering, he turned to a minuscule Goblin atop some sort of basket, and it wrote rapidly as he spoke. “Send word to the Pale Orc. Tell him I have found his prize, I expect payment in full, and I have little patience to spare for prisoners.”

The Goblin sped off on a zip line (Nori tucked the idea away; Goblins were beyond foul, but she couldn’t deny they were clever) while Thorin growled out, “Azog the Defiler is dead. He was slain in battle long ago!”

King-Goblin leveled a twisted smirk at Thorin. “So you think his defiling days are done?” He chuckled, quietly at first, building to a hearty cackle, to which the Goblins were only too happy to join. “Music! I feel a song coming on!”

Ignoring the ensuing cacophony as best she could, Nori edged close enough to Ori to speak without anyone hearing her but him. “Good job, Naddith. Very clever.” He started, then flushed; she continued without giving him a chance to respond. “Do anything that risky again and Dori won’t be the only one thinking of sending you home. Understand?”

Turning just enough to meet her eyes soberly, he gave a tiny nod; she searched his face carefully for any hurt or resentment, but was glad to find none. Dori treated him like a child, even now, and she knew how stifling it was, but she was the last person Dori would ever listen to, especially when it concerned Ori. Because of that, she tried to do her best to give him some freedom when she could, hence why she’d distracted Dori when he’d been teaching him and Belda to dance; where in Mahal’s name Dori had gotten the idea that Belda and Ori would suit, or that either of them was remotely interested in the other, she truly had no idea.

But no matter how much she sympathized with Ori, she wasn’t about to let him get himself killed. Taking risks was her job. Raising Ori was Dori’s. Making something more of himself than a disowned Durin or a thief’s brother, that was Ori’s job.

He was the only one of them who even had a chance at it.

While king-Goblin sang and pranced about, pointy-Goblin was inspecting the weapons and such that’d been scattered about the platform; partially unsheathing Thorin’s sword, it tossed it away with a grating screech, and all the other Goblins on the platform, including king-Goblin, cringed back from the blade.

“I know that sword!” King-Goblin pointed a shaking finger at the weapon.“It is the Goblin-Cleaver! The Biter!” The Goblins surrounding the Company fell on them with whips and claws alike, but the king-Goblin’s voice, high and thin and shrill, still broke through the pain. “The blade that sliced a thousand necks! Slash them! Beat them! Kill them! Kill them all!”

They were certainly doing their level best, and Nori, focused more on keeping them away from Ori than defending herself, already knew that she’d have to hide more than her fair share of bruises, if they got out alive.

The Goblins drove her back, and back, until she and Dori were shoulder to shoulder, Ori behind them. They weren’t in sync, both of them used to fighting alone, she with her knives and he with his sword, and they threw each other off more often than not as the Goblins swarmed forward. She was just about to tell him to take Ori and go, in fact, when something like an explosion of silence burst over them and she knew no more.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Dwalin roused himself as quickly as he could, which wasn’t saying much; whatever had happened, it’d knocked him off his feet and the sense out of his head.

Still, he almost preferred it; for a few blissful seconds, he’d been too dazed to remember watching his daughter die.

The memory rushed back with all the serenity of a typhoon, and he didn’t need Tharkûn’s prompt to push up and fight. His axes were across the platform, so he just launched Goblins off the edge until he was able to reach his weapons. Grasper and Keeper in hand, he threw himself into battle. His mind was roaring all the while, howling and screaming until he couldn’t hear anything but Belda’s scream, vision tunneling until all that mattered were the Goblins ahead of him, each one virtually identical to the ones that had dragged Belda away from the Company, attacked her, forced her back until she fell.

He barely registered the Company filing back, barely heard the wizard’s yell, only followed the Company because Nori (of all people) yanked on his arm until he was facing the right direction and then shoved him forward.

He followed unthinking at first, then sped to the front of the line, where all the Goblins would be. Nori was at his back all the while (the part of Dwalin’s mind that wondered why the thief was helping him was quickly silenced, as it really didn’t matter), and Dwalin focused on finding as many ways as possible to send as many Goblins as possible off the platforms, to plummet just as Belda had.

How long they fought and how long they ran, Dwalin didn’t know. He measured the time in number of Goblins killed, and the answer never changed: _not enough, never enough, not_ _enough_. At one point, the largest Goblin appeared, only to be slain by Gandalf, and the Company plummeted. Somehow, they survived, and Dwalin found himself beside Kíli again. The sight of him sent a shard of ice through Dwalin’s heart, remembering that only a few hours before—

He shoved away from the Prince and to his feet, and pulled Nori out of the wrecked bridge to distract himself from the memories; half-dazed as the thief was, and with his hair coming loose, there was something off about his face, but Dwalin shoved that aside too, to be thought of later, if there was a later.

They ran on, and on and on, until Dwalin’s legs felt as though they’d fall apart, and then they kept running. Finally, a glint of daylight beckoned, on the far side of what almost seemed to be a guardroom, based on the racks of weapons on the walls. And also in the room were the guards. Five Goblins lay dead on the ground: one at the entrance of the room with his throat cut open; another just past that’d been hobbled before the artery in his arm had been slashed; two of them, tangled together as though they’d been fighting, had their throats cut twice as deeply as the first; and one laying on his back with a single stab through his heart, though he was covered with scratches of the sort that adorned the fighting pair. All five were undoubtedly dead, yet the wounds closest to the floor were still seeping black blood; they’d been dead hours at most, potentially as little as minutes.

They didn’t have time to check, of course; with Goblins close behind them, they barely had time to pick their way around the corpses before bursting into the red-tinged daylight. Gravity, more than anything else, kept Dwalin moving downhill with the Company, only really coming to a stop when the land leveled out into a small clearing; as he stopped, sound began to creep back into his awareness, and he realized that the wizard was counting them, as though they were children to be minded, as young as—

“Where’s Belda?” For once, the wizard sounded as old as he looked, but that didn’t stop a wave of fire beginning to grow in Dwalin’s chest (and behind his eyes). “Where’s our Hobbit?”

“‘Our Hobbit’?” Dwalin barely knew he was moving, but found himself standing before Gandalf somehow, breath harsh and rattling in his chest. “‘Our’? You’ve no more claim to her than her kalfâ family—”

“Dwalin.” Dwalin ignored Balin’s voice easily, all his focus on the wizard.

“—you ran off and left her, and then you call her yours?!”

“Dwalin.”

Gandalf sighed sorrowfully, “Master Dwalin—”

“She was not YOURS!” Gandalf’s flinch back was the only reason Dwalin knew he was shouting; everything was getting strangely muffled. “She wasn’t yours, she was ours, she was— she was mine, she—” Pressure built in Dwalin’s chest and forced a sob out; he fought not to collapse there and then as his throat closed up. _‘She was mine to protect, mine to guard, and I— I fai—’_

“DWALIN!”

This time, Balin’s shout was accompanied by a hand on his arm, yanking him around to look down the slope; vision blurred, it took Dwalin a long moment to realize there was movement in the shadows, something red and brown and green and gold and flecked and streaked with black and running—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow, Belda's side. (^u^) I think you're going to like it. It's not like anything *I've* read on here. (^u^)  
> Notes: 1) The Goblin-King isn't the only one who sings in the book. That's one movie!change I'm happy about. 2) The pointy-faced Goblin I singled out is actually about the same height as the taller Dwarves in the movie, but I decided that it was one of the Goblins that had been made from a Hobbit rather than a Dwarf in this 'verse, so I changed that. And the reason it's important is because it's only the Hobbit!Goblins that can smell the threat Belda poses. And the Goblin-King. Exactly why he can is up to you. 3) Not really a full inspiration or I would have listed it for the story as a whole, but Ori getting the Goblins' attention intentionally in this chapter is inspired by What Makes A Hero (https://archiveofourown.org/works/673438) by Elsajeni. I'm not entirely clear on how the rules work for that, so let me know if I should add that to the story link thingy or if it's fine leaving it like this. Whichever way it ends up being, anyone who hasn't read that needs to, because it's fantastic, and plausible! Nice little bridge between book and movie canon. 4) Yes, there was magic involved in Belda's order to sheathe their weapons, but I'll go into that in more detail later. There's no magic in Thorin getting their attention, though. He's just a very charismatic dude. (In small doses.) 5) This is following a modified book!timeline, so they got captured before dawn on Tuesday and made it out of the mountain Wednesday evening. (In the book, they didn't make it out until sometime Thursday.) 5) Dwalin's cuss, 'kalfâ' is not a word in the Dwarrow Scholar's dictionary, and so I have absolutely no idea if I cobbled it together right. There's like ten different ways to configure adjectives and I haven't gotten a handle on how they're differentiated yet.  
> Enjoy the cliffhanger!  
> À demain!


	15. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Goblin Caves: Belda Edition.

Belda stirred slowly; she ached all over, but especially her hip and back. As she tried to move, pain stung at her from her arms and shoulders, and her heart sped as she recognized the feeling of claw-scratches; but the cave was as different from the snow-covered Shire as could be: small, damp, dark, and for some reason, she was covered in mushrooms. The dark wasn’t as dark as she thought it should’ve been, though; at nearly the same moment she realized that, she noticed that her headache was completely gone for the first time in weeks.

 _‘Oh, bloody—_ ’ She barely kept from slapping herself for being a fool of a Took. Night vision! Hobbits, as a general rule, could see no better than Men in the dark, though far better in daylight, but that was in Hobbit-form. It wasn’t unheard of (though far more common during the Wandering Days) for some aspects of a Hobbit’s soul-form to carry over to the Hobbit-form. It only happened in times of stress, famine, or danger, and it only happened if those times occurred just before and/or during a Hobbit’s First Shift, but it could happen. Her Mum had been adventurous enough that she’d developed night vision, as well; with that in mind, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that Belda would, but the possibility hadn’t even occurred to her.

An icy knot formed in her gut. What if she developed something more than night vision? Nowadays, a Hobbit only had one extra-Hobbit trait, if that, but during the Wandering Days, it hadn’t been unusual to have two, and three or four weren’t unheard of, either. Night vision, she could explain away, but what if she developed claws, or fangs, or wings?! She’d never be able to explain it without giving away all her race’s secrets, not to mention losing all the trust she’d earned from the Company.

Her heart stopped for a moment as she remembered. She’d already lost the Company’s trust. Thorin had completely rejected her.

Granted, Dwalin, Kíli, and (to a lesser degree) Ori, Fíli, and Nori had all treated her as though nothing had changed, and Dwalin had specifically reminded her that they weren’t Hobbits, but what if he’d been talking about something else? What if he was wrong?

Now that she remembered the Giants and the cave, she remembered falling. It was only flashes (maybe she’d remember more later, but flashes were enough for now, and so she didn’t try and remember), but she remembered Kíli grabbing her, losing her grip on him, they’d fallen, she’d landed on someone, but hadn’t had time to see who before the Goblins pulled her away, she’d fought, she’d killed three, then they’d swarmed forward until she’d tipped over the edge. A couple had nearly followed her, but their fellows had grabbed hold of them before they could.

Wincing through the pain, she shook off the mushrooms covering her and scanned her surroundings more carefully; there were a few more mushrooms on the walls, there was no ceiling that she could see, and her sword was nowhere in sight.

It felt as though a hand clenched around her heart at the last realization, and for a moment, all she could think of was Goblins and Giants and Trolls and the fact that she. didn’t. have. a weapon.

Breath quick and shallow and making her a little dizzy, she scanned the room again, and again, and felt a weight slip off her chest to see her little sword lying on the other side of the room, out of reach, but at least in sight.

She was about to stand and grab it, in fact, when a low, familiar sound pulled the breath from her lungs and all thoughts of motion from her head. Growling, animal growling, wolfish grow— Clenching her jaw, she blinked away the slight blur that’d begun to form. _‘It’s a cave in a Goblin mountain, it can’t be a wolf._ ’ But imagining what it could be kept her frozen as the noise grew louder, even as the draconic part of her mind screamed more and more loudly that she should be hiding, attacking, running, anything that would keep her from being a sitting duck.

A hand came into view first, grey-pale and nearly skeletal, and the discrepancy between her imagination and the reality was enough to keep her still, though she caught her breath at last. A head came into view next, Hobbit-sized, but with almost Goblin-y proportions, but the too-large eyes glowed silver in the dark as only Hobbit night-eyes could. It, or perhaps he, was nearly bald, and she saw as he came further into view that all of him was as skeletal and sun-starved as his hand. The sound she’d heard proved to be his breathing, confirmed when his eyes met hers and he completely froze.

For a rapid heartbeat, two, three, they only stared at each other; too late, she realized there was a slight draft from the opening above her, that would inevitably lead straight… toward…

The Hob-Goblin gave a raspy, piercing battle-cry and galloped forward on all fours until he was close enough to pounce. His hands were aimed for her throat, but she gave as little thought to that as she had to his gait, waiting until just the right instant before she kicked out with both legs, a powerful enough blow that he was sent flying back against the wall to the side of the entrance he’d used. She didn’t wait to see if he got up; heart pounding, she scrambled for her sword, half-crawling, half-dragging herself in that direction, but—

Weight suddenly slammed on her back; cold, clammy hands wrapped around her throat even as teeth clamped down onto her ear. A shriek ripped from her throat at the last, but the sound was strangled, as she was; desperate, she took her hands off of his and instead dragged herself forward, feeling for her sword. His hands were like vices, and stronger than she’d thought; she couldn’t breathe in the slightest. Vision tunneling, pulse pounding in her ears, she couldn’t find the sword, she couldn’t fight him off, she was going to d—

Pain in her left hand jolted her out of her thoughts, and she groped blindly in the same direction for an interminable second before she found the hilt; blindly, she slashed backwards.

Her hip and thigh blazed as she sliced herself unintentionally, but the Hob-Goblin screeched and released her, so she didn’t care. She still couldn’t see properly, but she could hear, and she could smell, and she tracked him that way, slashing her sword around whenever he tried to move to the side, and so backed him into a wall; by then, her vision was clear enough, though not yet normal, and she held her blade carefully to his throat. He stilled, and she pinned him down before he could slither away again, her knees on his legs, her free hand holding down his, and when he struggled, she put just a bit more pressure into the sword, just enough to break his skin.

He froze, apart from hyperventilating, and glared hatefully at her. Still catching her breath, she glared right back. But after a moment of silence, his eyes changed, pupils dilating enormously, and naked fear entered his scent. “What is it, precious? What is it? Doesn’t smell little, doesn’t look deadly!”

Frowning, she nearly answered him, but before she could, his eyes changed again, back to the pin-pupils they’d been before, and hatred replaced the fear in his scent. “Don’t know, precious, but it’s more than it looks.”

The fear-scent took over again, but she didn’t listen, too focused on his scent. The way it kept changing was strange, as was the way he seemed to be arguing with himself, but mostly, she was preoccupied with the fact that he didn’t smell like anything in particular. To look at him, she’d have thought he was something similar to a Hobbit, or a Goblin, but he didn’t smell anything like a Goblin (not to mention that her sword wasn’t glowing in the slightest), but though his scent was overall something like a Hobbit’s, he had no prey- or predator-scent. She didn’t think he had a soul-form at all, if he was some sort of Hobbit.

But beyond that, he smelled like fish, like stone and water and faintly of Goblins. By and large, like the cave… but there was nothing of outdoors in his scent, no grass, no birds, not even rain. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You live down here—” She meant to make it a question, but speaking hurt more than she’d expected, and she’d had to cut her rasp short. But he didn’t respond. “Answer!”

The fear-scent was in control, and cringed back. “Yes, yesyes, it hurts, precious, it hurts!”

For a moment, she thought the latter was part of his answer, before she realized that she was putting more weight into the blade at his throat than she’d meant to. Hurriedly, she drew it back a scant fraction— not enough to remove the threat, but enough that she wasn’t actually deepening the cut. It took an instant, perhaps two, but the hate-scent returned while she was looking down, and she had to hold his eyes for a moment to be sure he wasn’t going to try and get away. Satisfied, she rasped, “You know the way out.”

His brow furrowed as the fear-scent took hold again. “Out?”

He shaped the word as though it was foreign, but there was no deceit in his scent, only confusion. “Out of the mount—” A harsh, excruciating cough interrupted her, and it was a few moments before she could try again; he squirmed, but a bit of pressure with the sword and he fell still. “The sunlight, where’s the sunlight?”

Immediately, he squirmed again, but he wasn’t trying to buck her off; if anything, he seemed to be trying to get away through solid stone. “We hates the sun—”

Growling lowly, she leaned into his hands against the stone for a moment to punctuate her words. “I don’t care if you like it, do you know where it is?”

He cried out at the pain, but then fell into whimpers and sniffles, that then faded away as the hate-scent strengthened. “…Why?”

She’d heard that tone a thousand times from Otho when he was trying to be clever, but she could safely say that it had never brought a smile to her face before. “You do. Good. You’re going to take me there.”

The fear-scent snapped back into place, and he squirmed futilely back again. “No, precious, mustn’t go there! Goblinses there!”

She’d already lost her smile, and now put pressure on his hands again. “I. don’t. care.”

Whimpering, he kept squirming; she rolled her eyes. “No, no, can’t g—” A tiny bit of weight behind the blade was all she needed to pierce his skin, a thin, small cut above the one she’d made before, and he fell abruptly still, apart from ragged breathing.

Coldly, she held his eyes. “Take me there, or I’ll kill you.”

The hate-scent returned, and he sneered at her. “If it kills us, it won’t know where to go. It’ll be lost.”

He thought he’d won, she could hear it, but she didn’t let it faze her. “Which is no different than if you refuse to help me, so I lose nothing by killing you.” Imagining being jumped again, this time with no chance to fight back before he killed her, she mused aloud, “And I gain enough to make it worth my while.” Safety was an excellent motivator, after all. Cocking her head slightly, she wondered when the last time was that he’d encountered anything more dangerous than a lone Goblin, which was to say, not dangerous at all. That in mind, she promised, “Lead me to the exit, and I won’t kill you.”

Hate-scent still overpowering, he looked at her through slitted eyes, a cold smile playing on his lips; it was a look she knew well, and a thousand memories of her Mum didn’t improve her mood in the slightest. “We can do that, can’t we, prec—“

Cutting him a little deeper to shut him up, she tightened her grip on his hands. “Try and escape, I kill you. Fight me at all, I kill you. Betray me by giving away where we are, I kill you. Understand?”

He deflated, but the hate-scent didn’t fade; sullenly, he glared at her. “Yes, precious, we understands.”

Keeping a careful eye (and nose) for any sign of deceit, she waited until she was sure he appreciated the threat before nodding. “Good. Walk in front of me, stay within five paces of me. Any further, I’ll assume you’re trying to escape. And what happens then?”

Still sullen, he sneered. “You’ll kill us.”

Tail lashing at the skeptic tone, she bared her teeth as she cut just a little deeper. “Yes, I will.” He swallowed thickly, fear underlying the hate-scent without taking control. Satisfied, she eased back a fraction. “I’m going to let you go slowly. Make any sudden moves, I’ll kill you.”

Raising her brows, she only needed to wait for a moment before he growled. “We understands.”

Moving at a snail’s pace, she drew back from him, keeping her sword at his throat until the last moment, then only moving it far enough away to level the point at his chest. He watched her all the while, fear- and hate- scents swapping back and forth, never losing the wary look in his fluctuating eyes. She nodded for him to stand once she was a bit away, then for him to move ahead of her once he was on his feet.

He muttered under his breath all the while, a litany of complaints and accusations about her (and sometimes himself), whining excuses and ‘woe-is-me’s as often as he vowed vengeance on her. She didn’t bother to stop him. At first her throat was too sore, burning as though he’d clawed it open rather than only restricting her air. The pain didn’t fade, exactly, but it dulled as the hours went by, and by the time she felt like she could speak without too much difficulty, she was used to his ramblings and didn’t pay them much heed.

He never tried to escape, surprisingly, though he often thought out loud about it. The closest he came was ducking around a corner faster than she could follow, but giving him a pointed look and a new cut was all she needed to remind him of the consequences. Time only made her injuries ache more, though she bound the cuts on her leg as best she could without moving her sword away from him; she’d still had her pack when she fell, and the Elves had supplied a change of clothes in her size, which proved to make decent bandages. She felt a little bad about ripping the shirt up, but while the cuts were shallow, they were wide, too wide to stop bleeding on their own while she was on the move.

She took note of her injuries as best she could to while the hours away. The two cuts, on her left outside hip and thigh; aches in her back and on the other hip that she couldn’t see, but suspected would bruise magnificently; claw-scratches on her shoulders and upper arms, some shallow, some deeper, but none deep enough to hinder her; she’d cut the outside edge of her left hand on her sword when he was choking her, from the base of her pinky nearly to her wrist; her throat was on fire, of course, and she could barely touch it without having to bite back a whimper; and he’d bitten her ear.

She couldn’t tell how badly he’d bitten it, couldn’t tell how badly she was wounded, only that she was bleeding. Anything else would mean feeling the wound, and she couldn’t bear to do that. Hobbits’ reliance on hiding as their main form of defense meant that more often than not, their survival hinged on being able to hear potential threats coming long before they were in sight. Their ears were as important as their feet and eyes, more important than their hands, more important than nearly anything. Which meant that it was that much more important that they be able to feel if something was wrong with them, which meant that aside from their eyes and fingertips, their ears were the most sensitive parts of their bodies, as far as pain went.

She’d read through Bag-End’s entire library over the years, including a few medical texts that hadn’t, strictly speaking, been appropriate for a tween, which was how she knew that ears were only almost the most sensitive area with things other than pain, though they were close, but her ear hurt too much to even think of anything like that.

She didn’t know if she’d ever think of anything like that again. If she’d live long enough.

If she’d see Kíli again.

She’d never thought about marriage, not seriously. She’d still been young enough to have no interest in boys when the Fell Winter came, and afterwards… well, she hadn’t thought of her future at all for nearly three years, and by then she’d been ‘Mad Baggins’ and no one in Hobbiton would’ve touched her even if she would have them. And she wouldn’t. All the men in Hobbiton were as beastly as prey could be.

But Kíli was her friend, as much as Fíli and Ori were. He was kind, funny, more intelligent than he let on… She cared for him, she truly did. Even if he’d looked like Glóin, she’d have been drawn to him, but, well. She wasn’t about to complain about his looks.

He was a good friend, and she would want to have him in her life in any case, but she’d be lying to herself to think she wasn’t attracted to him. Maybe after everything was over…

Of course, maybe they’d go their separate ways after everything. Maybe he would find a nice Dwarf woman and she would find a good predator-Hobbit. Maybe she wouldn’t find anyone. But maybe…

Maybe.

And that wasn’t even taking Dwalin into account. She felt as safe with him as she did with Kíli, and as safe with the pair of them as she had with her Da. (She felt as safe with Fíli and Ori as she had with her Mum; safe, but with a quiet awareness that it likely wouldn’t last long that she tried to ignore.)

But Dwalin… she didn’t feel about him like she did about Kíli, or about the rest of the Company. She’d told Balin the truth, when he’d interrogated her as they left Rivendell. She respected Dwalin, liked him, but that conversation had been before everything with Nori. Now…

Now she didn’t know if she could bear never to see him again. It had been so long since anyone had cared for her like he did, held her as she cried, smiled proudly at her after training sessions, listened to her. She hadn’t had a real family in over a decade. She was a little scared to admit (even to herself) how much she wanted him to be her family, how much she wished he’d been the one she’d found after she was injured, instead of the Sackville-Bagginses.

She was scared to lose him, as she knew she would, if he ever found out what she was. She would lose all the Company if they found out, of course, and she was almost as scared to lose Kíli, but… she’d never had a… a crush, or a sweetheart, or whatever he was to her, which she still hadn’t quite figured out. She’d gotten by without one for thirty-two years. It would hurt to lose him, but she’d survive.

But she’d watched her family die. She’d lost them. And it had almost killed her. Losing Dwalin, now that she knew what it was like to be without a family, a real family, was too horrible to think about. The smart thing to do would be to distance herself now, before she could get hurt even more, but she was too selfish. She couldn’t bear to push him away, to be alone again. If he found out, if he left her, then at least she’d be able to run. At least she wouldn’t have to see the fear and disgust and hatred in his eyes that she’d grown used to from her ‘family’. To push him away now, when she had no choice but to see him every day until she killed Smaug, would take more strength than she had.

Unless she left anyway. The thought took her off-guard, sounding far more like her Mum than her Da, but she had to consider it. All that bound her to the Company was a piece of paper. She could go back to Rivendell and no one would be the wiser.

She could save herself. What did it matter what happened to them?

Her eyes burned as a memory returned: she’d been fifteen, perhaps sixteen, and her Mum had taken her out for an afternoon. After playing for a few hours, she’d asked her Mum how she could bear to leave so often, only home for a few weeks at a time before leaving for months, and her Mum had met her eyes steadily, smiling. And she’d told her that Bungo was her pack, but that she loved the wild too much to stay in the Shire. And she’d told her that a fox’s first priority, no matter what, always had to be herself.

Her Mum had only broken that rule once, when the wolves had caught Bungo. She’d died trying to save him.

But she wasn’t her mother. She was a fox, but she was a dragon. One thing she could say with any degree of certainty about herself was that she needed pack. She wasn’t her Mum, she couldn’t go weeks or months without seeing them. She’d gone years without a pack, and she couldn’t do that again. She couldn’t bear it.

She couldn’t live with herself if she abandoned them.

Resolve eased the tears away. She would keep her word. She’d stay with the Company, even if Thorin still didn’t want her there, even if Dwalin and Kíli decided they didn’t either. She’d travel with them to Erebor, and she’d kill Smaug, and then, if she still wasn’t wanted, then she’d leave. But only then.

By the time the Hob-Goblin slowed, her feet ached nearly as much as her throat; she could see more clearly in the dim light than she thought she ever had before, but even so, she often failed to see an obstacle until she’d already walked into it. It was only to be expected, of course; her eyes must have begun changing not long after Kíli’s birthday, and they wouldn’t be completely changed until her own. Two weeks wasn’t long at all, compared with eleven. But how much would they change, she wondered. The Hob-Goblin, whatever he was, whatever he’d used to be, moved as surely as though they were in broad daylight. Would she be able to see so well? She didn’t think her Mum could have, but then, her mother had never been (or at least never told Belda of being) in a situation as dangerous as the Quest was proving to be; she’d also been a full fox, not a fox-dragon.

But by the time her feet felt liable to drop off at any moment, he slowed, and turned to her with a finger to his lips. Cautiously, she crept up beside him, keeping her blade angled toward him all the while. Following his pointing finger, she saw several Goblins moving about a room, daylight glinting from the far end. “Told it, didn’t we, precious, we told it there was Goblinses, but it wouldn’t listen to us.”

Ignoring his mutters, she watched carefully; she counted four Goblins, but the way they moved around the room seemed to suggest more out of sight. One, perhaps two; she couldn’t hear them clearly, but she certainly couldn’t hear more than six of them.

“Please, precious, it must let us go back, back away from the Goblinses!”

Six. She’d killed three, on the bridge, before she’d fallen, and that had been with dozens more clawing at her, distracting her.

“Or it must let us fight. We loves to kill Goblinses, doesn’t we, precious?”

Without distractions, if she could control the fight, keep them from swarming her, three would be easy, and another three would be no more difficult.

“Yes, precious, loves to eats them up, if they’ve flesh on them ‘stead of just bones!”

Without distractions. But he would distract her, assuming he didn’t sabotage her. The only trust she had from him was trust that she would keep her word, after all. He had no reason not to kill her. He had several reasons to do just that.

“Too long since we had flesh, precious. Soft, juicy, crunchable flesh. We’re hungry, aren’t we, precious?”

He was a distraction at best, a threat at worst. She couldn’t trust him to leave without trying some mischief. She had to get rid of him.

“Hungry, yes, so long since we had anything but f—”

“We’re going back.” She spoke as quietly as he had, but he turned immediately, nearly bouncing; the fear-scent was still strong, but she knew how quickly that could change. She let him lead the way for a minute or so, then called out as they passed a small, craggy cavern. “Stop. In here.”

Hate-scent taking hold again, he narrowed his eyes at her, but complied. Once they were in, she tightened her grip on the hilt; he was quick and strong, and any hesitation would give him the chance to finish what he’d started earlier. “What’s this?”

The low growl in his voice was what pushed her; a heartbeat later, she was pushing him against the wall, blade to his throat once more. Icy eyes met icy eyes for a scant instant, then she moved her sword into a better position and—

The fear-scent took hold, and he blinked at her. “What’s it doing, precious?”

—she froze. He sounded, smelled, and looked as though… as though he genuinely hadn’t expected this, as though he was genuinely hurt by it. And the fear-scent was stronger than ever, like… he was terrified. He was shocked. He was prey.

And she was a predator. She—

_‘…true courage…’_

Fíli’s voice in her mind stilled her. She’d killed those Goblins, she intended to kill even more, but… but he wasn’t a Goblin. Maybe he was some sort of Hobbit, maybe he was something completely different, but he wasn’t a Goblin. And he was afraid of her. Like everything was, like the Bagginses were, like one of the Trolls had been, like the ponies had been, for a few seconds, when she’d let her instincts… take… over…

She was being led by her instincts now. She was treating him as prey, not as an enemy. She couldn’t afford to push away the feral edges of her mind back, not now, not when there were Goblins everywhere; her draconic instincts were the only reason she’d been able to fight off the Goblins earlier, the only reason she’d fought off the Hob-Goblin in front of her. She had more Goblins to get through before she could afford to be just a Hobbit again. But dragons were—

 _‘No_.’ She  was a dragon, and she was not a monster. In either form.

“What’s it doing?” The question was carried on the same breath as its predecessor, and she realized all her thoughts had taken barely a heartbeat. But now she had an answer.

Pulling her sword away from his neck, she leaned closer for an instant and hissed, “Having courage.”

Before he even had the chance to be confused, she slammed the hilt of her sword against his temple, with all the strength she could muster. He collapsed, unmoving, and she knelt beside him, heart racing as her fingers fluttered over his chest and his mouth. _‘No, I didn’t— I didn’t want—_ ”

A faint puff of air skated over her fingers, and she allowed herself a few moments to catch her breath, relief making her eyes water. Blinking away the blur, she sheathed her sword and moved behind his head to hook her arms under his, around his chest. He was almost shockingly light, but all the same, she didn’t have the strength to pick him up, only to drag him. It took a minute or two, but she managed to get him tucked away behind an outcropping of rock, where he’d only be noticed if the searcher was specifically looking for him.

But as she finished, something fell out of his pocket, metal brushing her fingertips for the instant before it thunked against the stone. It caught her attention immediately, but she made sure that he was safe and as comfortable as was possible before she inspected the object.

It was a ring, gold, cold, and surprisingly light for falling as heavily as it had. There was something odd about it, something she couldn’t name, just a quiet (or perhaps disquiet was a better word) instinct that she couldn’t quite interpret. Shaking her head, she slipped the ring into her pocket, to be better inspected later.

Travel back to the guardroom was swift and uneventful, and in a blink, she found herself crouched in the same vantage point as before. Idly, she noted that her sword had a faint glow now, barely enough to notice, and filed away the distance for future reference. The same Goblins were there as before, so far as she could tell, and the same number, as well. It would be a fight, and not an easy one. All the ones she could see were armed, and she knew how strong Goblins were.

But the room was small, as far as she could tell, and the doorway was narrow. If she could stay just outside of it, they’d have to come at her one at a time. If.

For the first time in her life, she closed her eyes, focused, and pushed back the Hobbit side of her mind, sinking fully into her draconic instincts. The change was slight, as the Hobbit and dragon sides of her weren’t at war, not like the Hob-Goblin’s halves, and she couldn’t even really call them different sides. She was a Hobbit, and she was a dragon. One form called for one sort of behavior, the other had no need of it. One form survived by going unnoticed, the other was large enough to be seen from miles away. Mostly, the change was in whether her first instinct was to hide or to kill. But her mind was the same.

She was a Hobbit, and she was a dragon, but overall, she was herself. She was Belda Took-Baggins, she was the rándýr-verndari of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield, she was the… something of Dwalin, the unofficial apprentice of Nori, the… the friend of Kíli, and of Fíli and Ori.

She was a Hobbit-dragon with a sword and a mind to get outside, no matter what was in her way. Or who.

Her bearing was different when she opened her eyes, more predatory, and she grinned toothily. She’d spent so much of her life pushing back her ferocity. It would be a relief to let loose. And there wouldn’t even be any witnesses.

Happy day.

For her.

Last day, for them.

Her [grin](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/86/27/75/862775771a09ce2f78c78ace13d72bb7--creepy-quotes-werewolf-quotes.jpg) widened. She was a fox, after all. Time to pounce.

Silently, she ran toward the guardroom; the one nearest the door didn’t see her until a heartbeat (his last) before she slashed his throat open; unfortunately, she underestimated Goblin stubbornness, and had to duck out of the way as he lunged at her. Something sliced her arm from behind, and she swung her sword in a wide arc as she spun; she nicked the offending Goblin’s cheek, but did no more damage than that. Snarling, he charged; she ducked his arm and sliced through the tendons at his ankles; he fell; darting back, she stabbed, a quick, efficient cut up his inner arm, a couple inches from just above his elbow almost to his armpit, and black blood gushed out in waves.

But a hand caught her ankle in the same moment, yanking back, and she fell. The moment seemed to stretch: she twisted in midair, just enough to see the Goblin still holding her leg; she landed atop something warm and moving, and realized she was lying on the dying Goblin; light flashed off of metal; the ring thudded to the ground.

The Goblin holding her let go so quickly that he left cuts ringing her ankle, and he and the other two all dove for the ring at the same instant. For a moment, she could only watch, bewildered into stillness as they fought each other viciously. Catching her breath again, she pushed herself up (putting one hand into the still-expanding pool of blood before she realized), and watched for the right time to attack.

One of the Goblins was kicked out of the fight, and curled into a ball as he groaned; the other two were wrestling single-mindedly, faces nearly touching in their bloodlust; quickly, she darted forward and stabbed, a single thrust opening both Goblins’ throats, though she used her withdrawal to deepen the gashes until they both choked on their own blood.

A satisfied grunt reminded her of the last of them; a snarl had her spinning around before she’d recognized the sound; she saw nothing, but a weight slammed into her hard enough to knock her over; the scent of Goblin (strangely muffled) assaulted her and she rolled them both, yanking her sword back. A weak cry sounded, unseen claws grabbed at her arms, but she just shoved away, out of reach.

A heartbeat later, she realized the stupidity of that: it was invisible; if it lunged again, she’d never see it. But the cry died away, and the raspy breathing she could hear slowed, then stopped. Warily, she listened for anything, anything at all, but there was no sound left in the room apart from what she herself made. Cautiously, she edged forward, watching as a pool of black blood spread from nothing, a blank space in the middle staying constant with oddly blurred edges. It wasn’t hard to guess at what had happened, and she gingerly felt around the corpse until she felt cold metal; she pulled the ring off, and watched as the fifth Goblin swept into view, a single wound in his chest, through his heart.

The light changed as a cloud moved past the sun, and she raced outside before she could think. The sunlight was a blessing from Eru himself, though it was painful; her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and emerging so suddenly had brought her headache back, full-force. The wind on her face was just as good, and she ran until she couldn’t stand to any longer, until the hill had begun to level out; knees weak, she fell more than sat, propping herself up on a tree, her back to the mountain, where another tree’s shadow was in just the right spot to shade her eyes. There was a clearing behind her, a natural stopping point for any searchers, so she’d have some warning if more Goblins came after her.

As her heart slowed, she didn’t need to make any effort to reground herself. Her wounds demanded her attention now that she was still and had nothing to distract herself; all together, she could barely think past the pain, and it made forgetting she was a Hobbit impossible. But…

The ring was still in her hand. The gold contrasted brightly against the black blood that coated her skin. Sunlight glinted off the metal and sent spikes of pain through her eyes, but she didn’t look away from it. Her hands hadn’t been anywhere near the Hob-Goblin’s pocket, and she hadn’t shaken him or jolted him, but the ring had fallen out of his pocket, or had it jumped?

She’d put it in her pocket, remembered shoving it down, but when she’d fallen, it’d jumped out then, too, when… when the Goblins had gotten the upper hand.

As soon as the Goblins had begun to win, it’d jumped out, and they’d all dived for it. They’d been so desperate to get it that they’d completely ignored her, and the two who’d been wrestling hadn’t even noticed her until she killed them. And the ring had turned the last one invisible. How? Why? It was magic, obviously, but she’d never seen anything magic have that sort of effect on people. Gandalf had given her Grandfather a pair of magic cufflinks, but all they’d done was fasten themselves and stay fastened until he gave the word.

Was invisibility more difficult? She had no idea, but either it was or there was more to the ring, something powerful enough to merit that sort of fixation. And what she’d noticed earlier was still there, something about it that made her fingertips buzz and a growl build in her chest.

It wasn’t right. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know how she knew it, but if her injuries hadn’t been anchoring her to her Hobbit-form, she would’ve almost been able to feel her hackles raising, her wings spreading. There was something subtly, quietly, viscerally wrong about it.

For an instant, she just wanted it away, and didn’t particularly care where it ended up or who found it. She drew her arm back to fling it off the cliff—

And stopped, the Goblins’ frenzy still fresh.

The mountain was full of Goblins, and who knew how often they left it? The Orcs had chased them in broad daylight, after all, so it was more likely than not that at some point, the Goblins would come outside, and if they happened on the ring…

She hated it. It was wrong, it was bad, but what if it could do more than just turn the wearer invisible? What if it could hurt people, or make the wearer stronger or faster or something? In the hands of Goblins…

She couldn’t throw it. There was no telling who would find it, what would happen. But what—

Gandalf. If anyone would know what it was, what it could do, he would, and he might know how to destroy it. She’d tell him as soon as he joined th—

But what about the Company?!? What if it affected them like it’d affected the Goblins? She couldn’t risk that, couldn’t bear to see that. She’d tell Gandalf in private, and he would know if it would affect Dwarves.

But why didn’t it affect her? Were Hobbits just immune? Were dragons immune? Were Hobbit-dragons immune? She didn’t think there’d ever been a Hobbit-dragon before—although the Green Dragon’s name was a staggering coincidence if she were the first—but even if there’d been others, they were incredibly rare, or else her parents would’ve told her stories about them.

But what if it already was affecting her and she just didn’t realize it? What would happen at her First Shift? Though, clothes and things didn’t transfer between forms, they just sort of vanished until the Hobbit shifted back, so maybe as long as she kept it on her when she shifted, it wouldn’t have the chance to affect her dragon-form?

In any case, it didn’t really change the fact that she needed to tell Gandalf about it, and to tell him, she had to hold onto it at least until he rejoined the Com—

The Company! Dwalin, and Kíli, and Thorin, and everyone, they were probably still in the mountain! Breath quickening just thinking about it, her throat protested, and all she could do for long, painful minutes was cough. While she did, she shoved the ring back into her pocket, all the way to the bottom, and resolved to sew the thing in if she had to keep holding on to it.

Once her coughing fit was over, she tightened her grip on her sword and braced herself against the tree with her free hand, preparing to stand; thundering footsteps sped toward her and she curled into herself before she thought, hiding behind the tree as her heart raced. Was it the Goblins? Orcs? Had the Hob-Goblin woken up and tracked her? Her thoughts whirled as she listened intently for any sign they’d spotted her.

Slowly, she realized that the footsteps sounded much heavier than the Goblins or the Hob-Goblin, but she still flinched when a deep voice sounded; the words made no sense, and for a panicked second, she knew it was Orcs. But another voice responded, and the shock of recognition stopped her heart for an interminable moment.

It couldn’t be Dwalin. It couldn’t, he was still in the mountain, but…

But that was his voice. It couldn’t be, but she wasn’t wrong. She was standing before she knew what she was doing, and realized her sword was still in her hand when she tried to brace herself against the tree. Sheathing it, the light glinted into her eyes and she closed them just as someone interrupted Dwalin; she knew the voice, but couldn’t place it, not with her pulse roaring in her ears.

Stubbornly, she opened her eyes against the light; the Company was there, a bit blurry, but there, but she couldn’t count them, couldn’t take her eyes off of Dwalin. She hurt and she was cold and she’d been scared for so long that now she was just tired, and she just wanted him to hold her and tell her everything would be all right. She just wanted to believe everything would be all right.

She started to lose her balance as soon as she lifted her foot, and leaned heavily against the tree as the world shivered. But she gritted her teeth against the vertigo and moved forward anyway, building to a run as the Dwalin-blur turned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, reunion tomorrow. Sorry? But I'm reasonably sure that this is a unique take on the Gollum scenes, unlike what I did in Kintsukuroi. (It's already posted and it doesn't matter, but part of me still just hates that scene. I'm not sure what I could have done better, but I do know that I could have.)  
> Notes: 1) I'll give you three guesses what Smeagol's soul-form was before the Ring destroyed it. (Hint: he and Wormtail would have gotten on famously.) 2) The place she gets the Goblin, on his upper arm? Yeah, that actually works. Slice that open and you bleed out in less than a minute. (#3838957 on the list of reasons I need a t-shirt that says 'I'm a writer, not a murderer, I swear'.)   
> À demain!


	16. Balin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire.

Dwalin ran a few steps to meet the Hal— the Burglar at the edge of the clearing, and she collided with him as though she hadn’t seen, though her eyes hadn’t left him since Balin saw her turn to face the Company. He caught her up with another sob, and fell to his knees still holding her.

The last hours, since she’d fallen, had been exactly what Balin had feared would happen. He hadn’t seen Dwalin so broken since Azanulbizar. That grief, that all-consuming agony, was something neither of them had felt since that day, since their father had fallen. But the look on her face when she turned…

It had been the light off her sword that caught his attention, but it had been her expression that held it. She’d looked as though she couldn’t believe her eyes; the look had been familiar, since it’d been how Balin had felt to see their lost Burglar standing there, safe and well, if filthy.

A ragged inhale reminded him of the Company’s presence, and he saw that Fíli, Kíli, and Nori looked as though they’d blow away with the breeze, eyes shining. Though, for that matter, Glóin, Dori, Ori, and Bombur’s eyes were all suspiciously bright, as well, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Bofur smile as widely.

Thorin, though, looked almost irritated, and Gandalf seemed dismayed.

The latter made no sense at first. Then Dwalin drew back from the girl.

“Mahal, kit,” Dwalin’s voice cracked. “What’s happened to you?”

She was covered in blood, most of it not her own (must have come through the guardroom after the Goblins were killed, tripped into one of the pools); there was a shallow cut on the back of her left arm that was seeping blood, and another on the side of her hand (cut herself somehow, no doubt); but her throat, he couldn’t explain away. Someone had strangled her. Black bruises in the shapes of long, spindly fingers wrapped around her throat from behind, and the swelling was obvious as she shook her head, wincing.

“Doesn’t matter,” her voice was a rasp, and it obviously pained her, but she croaked one more word, “everyone?” She looked past Dwalin, eyes finding each of the Company, and when his eyes met hers, he realized she almost looked desperate. But that didn’t make any sense; she’d been the one to fall, after all.

Tharkûn was the one to answer her, gently. “They’re safe, kit. Everyone’s safe.”

She held his eyes for a long moment, expression conflicted, before meeting Dwalin’s gaze once again, brows raised in a wordless plea. He nodded distractedly. “Aye, kit. We’re safe. Bumps and bruises.”

Balin could tell that the words were on the tip of Dwalin’s tongue, but the Prince, surprisingly, was the one to actually blurt them out. “We thought you were dead!” A shocked breath left her, and she looked between Kíli and Dwalin several times before her eyes stayed on the Prince’s. “You fell.” His voice was raw, and Balin couldn’t help but remember how he’d fought; he’d been the spitting image of his uncle then, at that age. “I— We watched you fall.”

Despite himself, Balin glanced to Thorin, but the King gave no sign of having noticed the slip, or the way the Prince and the Burglar were gazing at each other. Balin held back a frown; if Thorin wasn’t going to say anything, he ought to. For Erebor’s sake.

Dwalin raised the hand nearest Balin to her cheek, and gingerly cupped it, bringing her eyes back to him. When he spoke, his voice was just as raw and half as loud as the Prince’s quiet words. “You died.”

Balin’s eyes burned as he watched her expression break, her eyes tightly close, and as she leaned her forehead against Dwalin’s. He hadn’t seen her fall, he’d been buried under the Company, but he’d heard Dwalin, and he’d known what had happened. At least, he’d known that she’d been lost. And he’d mourned her, as much as he could when so much else demanded his attention, but it had been Dwalin’s mourning that tore him apart. That sound. The way the fight had completely left him, as Balin had never seen before, even at Azanulbizar.

Dwalin loved her. Balin had never seen him so devoted to anyone but himself and Thorin, but with them, he was still brusque, still as rough as with anyone else, just with a hint of affection to soften it. With Belda, he was gentle. Balin supposed it made sense; he and Thorin didn’t need much protection anymore, but Belda needed far more, and the last few weeks had made Balin begin to suspect it wasn’t just physical protection she needed. The way she looked now should’ve made her seem more vulnerable, by all rights, but the smaller spatters of blood didn’t look like splashes so much as like she’d been directly in front of the victims when they were killed.

Like she’d been the one to kill them.

It was ridiculous to even wonder if a slip of a girl like her could kill even a single Goblin, but the evidence seemed to point toward it. There could be another explanation, of course, a more likely explanation. Something.

But whatever had happened, she seemed to care for Dwalin.

“Why did you come back?” Balin and what seemed to be the entire Company turned to look at Thorin automatically, taken aback by the dangerously-quiet question.

Balin glanced back at Dwalin an instant later, and wasn’t surprised to see that he and Belda were both tense, though he looked angry while she wore an unreadably-considering expression. “What does it matter? She’s back.”

Dwalin’s question was a challenge, not an inquiry, but that didn’t stop the Ha— Burglar from speaking over his final growl. “It matters.”

Dwalin immediately fell silent, but he looked at her as though to ask if she was sure; their eyes were level, Balin noticed, though the difference in their proportions meant that she was still a bit shorter. But her eyes never left Thorin, and never softened in the slightest, but Balin noticed, as well, that her hands fell to wind her fingers in the fur of Dwalin’s jacket. She took another breath or two before she spoke, and Balin held back a wince at how painfully hoarse she sounded.

“I came back because I gave my word. Maybe the word of a runaway Hobbit doesn’t mean anything to you, but I gave. my. word. I swore to go to Erebor with you, and to do whatever I had to in the meantime, and to do my part in getting the Mountain back for you. I don’t care if you don’t want me here, I don’t care what you think of me, but I gave my word, and I intend to keep it. Whether I’m wanted here or not.”

Silence rang in the clearing as her words hung in the air. Her speech had been half-rasp, half-snarl, and the feral fire in her eyes in the middle had forced Balin to reconsider just how likely it was that she’d killed those Goblins.

She was panting, slightly, when she finished, and both Dwalin and Gandalf seemed about to speak when her expression suddenly changed, going distant as she closed her mouth. Balin nearly asked for an explanation, but the look on Tharkûn’s face silenced him; the wizard looked as though he knew exactly what was happening, and it filled him with dread. Her eyes darted around for a moment before settling on the mountain behind them, or perhaps just past it, as the wind blew her hair back.

“What is it?” The note of tension in Fíli’s voice was telling, but Balin only had an instant to wonder how she’d learned whatever it was that Tharkûn knew.

Voice dropping into a snarl, she pushed away from Dwalin slightly, just enough to grip the hilt of her sword, though she didn’t draw it. “Orcs.”

* * *

 

Thorin

 

Fíli and Kíli both let out quiet curses, and Tharkûn drew his sword immediately; Thorin stiffened, but couldn’t understand why they were taking it so seriously when she couldn’t have seen or heard anything. Gandalf barked, “How many?”

Backing away from the mountain, she bared her teeth and growled (honest to Mahal, literally growled), and Thorin had to wonder just what had changed in the caves. The Company was beginning to share her tension, shifting in their places, and Thorin bit back a curse to realize that his own hand had fallen to the hilt of Orcrist. She (yapped, growled, snarled) barked back, “Who cares, just RUN!”

As before they’d fallen into the cage, the Company obeyed her order (and followed her example) as though they couldn’t help themselves; Thorin felt an urge to follow suit, but it was weak enough for him to ignore. The baying behind him, though, was a bit more compelling. Swearing under his breath, he ran after the Company, sword in hand, and found himself level with the wizard. “Out of the frying pan.”

Tharkûn replied dryly, somehow not out of breath, “And into the fire.”

The snarls behind them were getting closer, and Thorin stayed at the rear of the group, slaying any wargs that came too close for comfort. The beasts were huge, and Thorin couldn’t help but be glad when Dwalin dropped back to assist him.

The brief contentment fell, though, when he realized that Dwalin kept glancing forward, at the H— Hobbit. Granted, she was limping, but still, she was solidly in the middle of the group (not pack, why did he start to think that?), even ahead of Kíli and Ori. The fading sunlight didn’t obscure their path in the slightest, but still the wargs caught up. As Thorin and Dwalin slowed near an outcropping of rock, one warg leapt over it, sliding to a stop some dozen yards ahead, facing them, facing “Kíli!”

Thorin didn’t even notice the Burglar racing back until she shoved the warg’s head away from Kíli just in time to deflect it towards Thorin, and she grabbed his nephew’s hand and dragged him after the rest of the Company before Thorin even killed the beast. It didn’t even fight, for some reason, and he and Dwalin were standing at the edge of the cliff in another handful of heartbeats.

Neither of them needed Tharkûn’s advice to climb, but a part of Thorin couldn’t help but distantly note that for all the wizard’s power, there was no compulsion in his order. Thorin also couldn’t help but note that the Burglar scurried up the branches like a squirrel, even more quickly than Kíli, just below her. (Though, she didn’t waste movement by flipping into the tree as Kíli did.) But Kíli helped Fíli up in another moment, and once Thorin saw that all the Company was at least beginning to climb, he clambered up himself.

But once he was in the branches of the foremost tree, he noticed that though there were over two dozen wargs swarming below them, there was a noticeable line that none of them crossed, from the warg Thorin killed straight to the tree that Fíli, Kíli, and the Hobbit were in. None of the wargs approached that tree, either, though they eagerly jumped on the others, teeth glinting in the moonlight.

The wargs turned as one, suddenly, hunching in deference, and Thorin pushed a branch out of his line of sight. It couldn’t be, it was impossible, and yet, there was “Azog.”

The white warg snarled as though it had heard its master’s name, and the filth himself leaned forward, sniffing theatrically. “ **Do you smell it?** ” Straightening as he addressed the warg-riders behind and around him, he took another long sniff; Thorin barely noticed the Orc’s forces, his eyes tethered to the Pale Orc as though he were chained. “ **The scent of fear?** ”

He met Thorin’s eyes, and vengeful rage rose in Thorin’s gut, enough to smother what words he might have said. This filth killed his kin. He’d see him dead before the night was out.

“ **I remember your father reeked of it,** ” he drew out the syllables in a hiss, eyes almost gleeful, “ **Thorin, son of Thrain.** ”

Thorin shook his head numbly. “It cannot be.” Mahal, it couldn’t be true; his father had always been strong, even in the wake of Thrór’s gold-madness.

It wasn’t true. Azog would pay for such a falsehood, for besmirching a King Under the Mountain.

Deliberately, Azog pointed his mace at Thorin, and raised his voice. “ **That one is mine, and the odd one. Kill the others!** ”

The wargs rushed forward, still avoiding Fíli and Kíli’s tree, but jumped on the others, snapping at the Company’s heels.

“ **Drink their blood!** ”

At nearly the same moment as Azog’s command, the Burglar shouted, “Jump!”

Thorin looked over just in time to see her leap from her tree to the one behind it, and when the wargs began to claw at the bark beneath their feet, Fíli and Kíli followed her, yelling.

The sound only seemed to rile the wargs up, and Thorin and Dwalin had to follow his Heirs’ example, as did the rest of the Company, all the way to Gandalf’s tree on the very edge of the cliff. Thorin had ended up on the same level as Kíli, on the opposite side of the tree, while Dwalin was a branch above Kíli, Fíli was above Dwalin, Nori and the Burglar were across from Fíli, and just above them were Ori and Dori, Gandalf topping the group. The rest were scattered below Thorin, Bombur nearly low enough for the wargs’ leaps to reach him, though his brother and cousin were helping him higher.

A fiery arc caught Thorin’s attention, and his eyes followed the flaming pinecone down for a moment before he looked up at Fíli’s name; Tharkûn tossed a similar projectile to her, then one to the Hobbit, and both girls chucked them at the beasts below them, though the Burglar took a moment to light another first. The Hobbit’s expression held Thorin’s eye. She was looking at a single point in the distance, and handed the extra pinecone to Nori before bracing herself, standing partially, and she took a single breath before she threw the thing with all her pitiful might.

He couldn’t help but follow its progress, and watched as it arced down, down, to strike Azog full in the face as he roared. His outraged sputtering was nearly drowned out by the girl’s raspy laughter, and Dwalin and Nori’s hearty guffaws. Fíli, Kíli, Ori, and Bifur cheered, but fell silent a moment later when the tree gave a violent shudder.

Startled yells filled the air, and Thorin nearly lost his grip on the bark as the tree tipped over; Kíli grabbed his arm to steady him, though Thorin wasn’t sure which of them needed the assistance more. The tree was nearly horizontal when it stilled, and though none of the Company fell, he could see that a few, including Kíli, looked liable to at any moment. Yells from further up proved him right, and he looked over just in time to see Gandalf catch Dori with his staff, Ori clinging to Dori’s leg. From there, it only took him a blink to spot Fíli, safe in her perch.

Satisfied with his niece’s safety, he focused on Kíli, and hauled him a little higher; his sister-son released his hand as soon as he was able to support himself, but Thorin watched him for a moment longer, until he was sure Kíli really was safe. A growl from Dwalin drew his attention, but Thorin was too far from his friend to help him up; Dwalin would have to handle himself.

But he shouldn’t have needed to. None of them should have, and if it hadn’t been for Azog, none of them would’ve needed to. Slowly, Thorin’s eyes tracked to the Defiler, and as their eyes met, Thorin’s blood burned to spill Azog’s, his hand found Orcrist’s hilt of its own accord, and he wanted nothing more in the world than to see the filth rot.

Standing easily on the wide trunk, he drew Orcrist in an easy motion, and the downhill slope of the tree made walking toward the Orc as easy as falling. The fire blazed between them, the moon- and firelight playing on the filth until he looked as ethereal as a weed-eater, and a stony resolution dug into Thorin’s bones, to prove that image wrong and show just how mortal the Defiler was. Orcrist and Oakenshield at hand, he sped into a run, and met the filth’s roar with one of his own.

Motion blurred, pain blazed across him, and Thorin found himself on his back. Ignoring the pain, he pushed up. He would not be laid out by the filth who slew his grandfather.

Azog’s mace ripped across his chest, and even through his armor, it was agony. He fell. Huge jaws closed around him, and the world erupted into red-gold fire. Opening his eyes at Dwalin’s distant yell, he swung Orcrist at the beast’s muzzle, and the brief rush of air over his wounds was paltry compared to the burst of white fire through him when he hit the ground.

A distant voice ordered, “ **Bring me the Dwarf’s head** ,” and though part of him knew it was suicide, he wanted to correct whoever was speaking that he was a King, not ‘a Dwarf’.

But he couldn’t move, in any case. The dim light of the sky was soothing compared to the fire around him, but vibrations below him took his attention away from it. Metal appeared just under his chin, and he followed the blade up to a particularly unsightly Orc. Alarm pulsed through him, breaking through the fog, and he grasped vainly for the sword he knew (he knew) was just beside him, by his hand.

But he couldn’t reach it.

His mind screamed, ‘I am a King, I will not die like this, I will not be my grandfather!’

His heart screamed, ‘I will not leave my sister, I will not leave my Heirs, I will not leave my Company!’

He wanted to scream, ‘I will not die today!’

But he was too weak, and he could only watch as the blade began to drop.

A blur, gold, black, and green, sped behind the Orc, and its blade fell behind it, out of sight as it roared; a blink later, cold light flashed over the Orc’s arm, then into its eye, and the last thing Thorin saw was the Hobbit girl standing between him and Azog as the unnamed Orc collapsed.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda tore her eyes away from Dori and Ori when Thorin stood, but she could see that Nori was still watching them out of the corner of her eye. The thief had held onto her when the tree tipped, and probably kept her from falling out entirely; the Orcs’ arrival had cleared her head somewhat, but she still felt a little muzzy, and she hadn’t realized the tree was moving until she’d begun to slip off.

But Thorin’s sword held her attention, and half-whined words slipped out before she could stop them. “No, nonono, what is he doing?!”

She didn’t realize she was moving again until Nori tightened her grip on her. “Mahal, kitten, stop! You’ll kill yourself!”

Belda barely heard her, too focused on her commander running into danger. “But Thorin—”

“—Is a warrior, he can handle himself!”

Belda had to admit to herself that Nori had a point, but she tasted bile at the thought, and if Nori hadn’t been holding her still, she likely would’ve raced after Thorin.

With a roar that made her bare her teeth, the white warg sprang over Thorin, knocking him down, and this time Nori gave her a shake. “Stop!”

The Orc charged Thorin, and Belda tensed further (which hadn’t seemed possible, but evidently…) as she tried (and failed) to shake off Nori’s hands. “He’ll die!”

“Let him!”

Shock stole any words Belda might had spat at the thief, and she could only stare at her for a long moment, seeing the panic and the terror in her eyes. A familiar cry pulled her eyes back to Thorin, and a sob escaped Belda to see her commander in the same grip, the same pain that she remembered from the Winter. Her scars throbbed as though they were new, and she redoubled her efforts to get away as Dwalin nearly fell from the tree trying to reach their leader.

“Belda!” Implacably, Nori turned Belda’s head to face her, and the novelty of Nori actually using her name was just enough that Belda was still for a moment, watching the thief’s eyes shine in the firelight. “You can’t save him, Belda. There’s nothing you can do, so save yourself. Stay here, stay safe, don’t—” Nori broke off with a strangled sob; Belda just felt numb. Quietly, desperately, brokenly, Nori begged, “Don’t make me lose you again.”

For an instant, time stopped. The thief’s sharp features were replaced with the vulpine, pine-green eyes of Belladonna Took-Baggins, her knife-edge smile and mischievous laugh-lines. Except that those were words Belladonna had never said, not to Belda _._ Except that Belda had only seen her mother so nakedly distraught once in her life, when Belladonna had screamed for Bungo, when she’d run to save him, seconds after she’d done nothing for Belda. A thousand memories of lessons saying almost exactly what Nori was telling her now rushed back, the underlying refrain never changing: save yourself at all costs, no matter who pays the price.

For an instant, Belladonna looked at Belda through Nori’s eyes.

Eyes burning, Belda leaned close and snarled through the pain, “I. am. not. my mother.”

Confusion flooded tangibly out of the thief, and Belda darted out of her grip while she could, running down the tree as another Orc approached Thorin where the white warg had thrown him. Dwalin was pulling himself onto the trunk, and she leapt over him as she drew her sword, ignoring his and Kíli’s shouts, ignoring the pain everywhere as she landed, ignoring everything except that her commander was in danger.

For the second time that day, she pulled the dragon forward.

For the second time that day, she grinned.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

The terror Dwalin felt at seeing Thorin thrown was nothing compared to watching Belda run headlong into danger. He pulled himself fully onto the trunk with a strength born of sheer adrenaline, yelling for her to come back all the while, Kíli echoing him.

So to say he was surprised when she hamstrung the Orc about to kill Thorin, before immediately darting back to efficiently slice open his upper arm and eye, would be an understatement. Shock froze him where he stood for a long moment, even as he connected the injuries she’d just inflicted on the still-twitching Orc with those he’d seen on the corpse in the guardroom. The Orc bled out in a matter of seconds, and Belda didn’t even glance at him, only turned to glare coldly up at Azog as though to say ‘take one step and I’ll do the same to you’.

Three warg-riders moved into position behind Azog, but the wargs’ ears were flat against their heads, their tails between their legs, their heads tilted oddly, exposing their necks. As Dwalin watched, one of the riders ordered his warg forward, but all four wargs stayed still, whining. The sight was baffling, but it reminded Dwalin: when Belda had run back for Kíli, she’d shoved a warg aside. He knew for a fact that she wasn’t half as strong as a Dwarf her age would be, nowhere near strong enough to budge a fully-grown warg, and yet she had. Or it had let her.

Glowering, Azog jerked his head toward Belda. “ **Forget what I said; that one dies now. Kill her**.”

The words blazed through Dwalin, and a rage fiercer than he’d felt in years had him moving before he even thought to. Grasper and Keeper were in his hands, though he didn’t remember drawing them, and some part of him was dimly aware that Kíli and Fíli were behind him, the same part that filed away the feral grin on Belda’s blood-stained face.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Dwalin, Fíli, and Kíli charged into the Orcs before they could get closer than ten paces away from her; intellectually, Belda was glad: they had far more experience than she did. But instinctively, she nearly growled at the sight of her pack defending her from pathetic rodents such as the Orcs, depriving her of her right to cut down any threat to her commander.

But they made excellent distractions.

Dwalin was clearly a more experienced fighter than Fíli or Kíli, but all three of them handled themselves admirably, despite the fact that Dwarves, as she knew from Dwalin’s tutoring, were quite a bit slower than Hobbits. So really, it only made sense for her to duck under and around them as the battle carried her, slicing and stabbing the Orcs’ weak points. Their physiology was at least marginally similar to Hobbits’, and those medical texts had been very detailed when it came to unfortunate farming accidents. A broken hoe, a runaway goat, a misplaced carving knife; there were certain spots on Hobbits where it took hardly an effort to draw blood, and hardly further effort to draw enough blood for the victim— that is, the patient— to be severely weakened, perhaps even to the point of death.

And Orcs were very similar to Hobbits, as it happened.

Losing herself in the fight, she barely noticed the blood that spurted over her except to blink it away, irritated; she only realized she was baring her teeth at her quarry when she tasted blood; she only remembered she was still injured when an Orc happened to strike her wounded ear.

The world whited out in a roaring blaze of agony, and though her vision cleared quickly, she didn’t hear a thing over the ringing in her ears as Azog rode toward her, his warg only just bringing him close enough to strike her, a powerful blow with his mace, much like he’d dealt to Thorin, sending her flying back—

Belda blinked. She was lying next to a boulder. The orange-grey was interrupted by a splotch of red, and the drips flickered oddly, light appearing and disappearing. It was funny, though she couldn’t say why. She wanted to laugh, but her stomach hurt. She wanted to look at something else, but her head protested fiercely when she tried to turn it. She couldn’t think why. Slowly, she did turn her head, ignoring the pain, and saw that there was lots of fire on her other side. It made everything all wavy, even the big pale man when he moved in front of the fire.

He got closer and closer, but somehow never clearer; his face melted and dripped like candle wax, and if she could have, Belda would have reached up to see if he was squishy like wax, too.

Then someone behind him flew away. More and more someones flew away, and it took Belda quite a while (from her point of view) to realize that they were being thrown. Blurred somethings swooped overhead, back and forth, back and forth, but she couldn’t be afraid of them. Even when one swooped toward her.

One moment she was watching it, the next she was in the air. Something rough was holding her, and every time she blinked she could feel bristly hair brushing her forehead and big arms around her, but then she always opened her eyes again and saw that there was nothing there.

The rough things let go, and she fell slowly, not far, to land on something soft. It hurt, of course, hurt everywhere, but the soft, warm thing was so wonderful that she just wanted to fall asleep on it.

But almost as soon as she’d had that thought, she glanced up, and she saw the sky. In front of her, around her, everywhere, the sky was there, stretching out as far as she could see, and farther. She was above the clouds, the wind in her face and brushing over her fur. Her wings carried her effortlessly, and she flew. She flew, and flew and flew, and flew over mountains and down into valleys and through the night and under the stars and past sunrise, and she never wanted it to end.

But it did. Something under her pulled her up, and she couldn’t help but slide down, the softness too soft for her to grab hold of, but then the something in front of her moved away, and she could see the sky again. She felt something behind her pulse, something almost familiar (something almost like Rivendell), but she kept looking at the sky. She wanted to keep flying. Why wasn’t she flying?

A familiar voice caught her attention, and she looked over her shoulder automatically. A dark blur was moving, two other, familiar dark blurs beside it, but she couldn’t figure out what they were. The first one made more noises, and got close enough that she couldn’t see past it. She turned to look at it better, and realized that it had a face, though it was as melty as the pale one’s had been. After making a few more noises, the blur moved forward, and she felt arms around her. There was fur and metal and hair, too, but none of it was right, there was something missing that she was sure should’ve been there, but she was nice and warm, even though she hurt, so she leaned against the blur, ignored the pain, and closed her eyes.

Warm air skated over her hair, and she opened her eyes as the arms dropped away. The blur didn’t seem to be facing her anymore, and she turned to see what it was looking at, and there was the sky. There was the sky, and the sun and clouds and on and on and on and forever, and the wind pulled her forward, the horizon calling her.

The wind spiraled up from below the ledge, and she moved toward it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely happy with this chapter, but it's necessary, so... *shrugs* Although, most of what I'm not happy with is just Thorin's section, so, could be worse.  
> Notes: Points to anyone who caught the (very) slight Les Mis allusion.  
> Full aftermath tomorrow; also, the Company gets a lesson in Why Concussions Are Bad.  
> À demain!


	17. Gandalf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why Concussions Are Terrifying (Especially When They Aren't Yours): An Essay By Dwalin Fundinul

The spike of fear faded away as Thorin’s eyes fluttered open, and Olórin let himself relax a fraction, smiling faintly.

Sounding weak, but not dying, Thorin breathed, “The— Hobbit?”

Olórin leaned in, smiling soothingly. “It’s all right. Belda is here.” He’d waited until one of the Eagles had grabbed her before jumping onto one himself, and they would’ve made certain that she arrived safely. He’d needed to tend to Thorin too urgently to check that she was unharmed, but he could promise one thing. “She’s quite safe.”

Thorin, unsurprisingly, immediately began fighting to his feet; though they looked torn, Dwalin and Kíli both helped him up, and Olórin watched carefully. He’d healed what he could, but he was not a healer by trade. If he’d missed something, now was the time to watch for it, before it could worsen.

But he saw nothing problematic, or at least that time wouldn’t solve on its own, and so moved slightly away from the Company; he wouldn’t be with them long, and so now was the time for him to begin drawing back. But…

He glanced at Belda, then looked back. She was facing the opposite direction, posture relaxed, but it wasn’t like her to be unconcerned with her Company, her pack.

“You!” Olórin glanced at Thorin against his better judgement; the Dwarf sounded almost accusatory. Dwalin and Kíli gave Thorin uneasy glances, the former actually opening his mouth before Thorin cut him off. “What were you doing? You nearly got yourself killed!”

Belda looked over her shoulder, her eyes wide and confused under the liberal amounts of drying blood that covered her, but there was something off about her expression, something Olórin couldn’t quite place.

“Did I not say that you would be a burden? That you had no place amongst us?” At that, Dwalin actually took a step toward Thorin, hand on one of his axes, but Balin and Fíli held him back; Belda’s expression didn’t change, but she did turn to face Thorin fully as he moved close enough in front of her to block Olórin’s view. Voice cracking, he moved even further forward. “I have never been so wrong in all my life.”

In another moment, he was embracing her. She didn’t exactly return the hold, but she didn’t fight him, which was more than Olórin would’ve hoped for, after seeing them interact earlier that day. Or was it the day before? The Eagles took their leave, and Olórin gave a solemn nod to each of those that met his eye.

They’d saved their lives, all of them.

A soft exhalation drew his eyes back to Thorin and Belda, just as the King Under the Mountain stepped forward. Belda moved with him, both of them as slowly as if they’d been half-asleep.

“Is that…” Kíli sounded almost as dazed as Thorin looked, and Balin’s voice was thick as he answered.

“Erebor. Aye, lad.”

Remembering his visits to the Kingdom before its fall, Olórin smiled softly. “The last of the great Dwarf Kingdoms of Middle-Earth.”

“Our home.” The pride in Thorin’s voice was nearly tangible, and Olórin’s smile grew a fraction.

A bird flew eastwards overhead, and Óin exclaimed, “A raven! The birds are returning to the mountain!”

As lovely a thought as it was, Olórin had to disappoint him. “That, my dear Óin, is a thrush.”

“But we’ll take it as a sign.” Thorin nodded to himself, and Olórin could hear the smile in his voice. “A good omen.”

Silence reigned for a long, weighted moment, then abruptly broke, as could be expected, with Bofur declaring (in a loud, slightly obnoxious joke) how hungry he was. It was fair enough, as it had been at least a full day since any of them had had the chance to eat, and that was assuming they’d eaten before Olórin had rejoined them. Even Thorin gave a half-chuckle, wincing as he did, and the Company turned temporarily away from Erebor to discuss the lack of supplies and the fact that they were standing atop a ludicrously-tall rock. Belda’s pack had survived along with her, as it happened, but she didn’t join the discussion. She didn’t even turn around.

Dread stole away Olórin’s good mood, and for a moment, he was looking at her from the other side of the Troll-camp. He moved slowly forward, at almost exactly the same moment she moved, as well, toward the ledge. Longer legs gave him the advantage, and he called her name quietly once he was within arm’s reach. She didn’t respond, and his dread intensified. Another step, two, and he was beside her, just as she reached the edge of the Carrock.

He caught her arm quickly, and she swayed forward though her feet stopped, toes curling over the brink. Noticing that meant that Olórin also noticed the drop, and his heart pounded. By the grace of Eru, perhaps he could survive such a fall, but a Hobbit would have no hope of it. “Kit, what are you doing? You’ll fall.”

Motion drew his eyes to the Company as he looked up from the precipice, and he held up his free hand, stilling Kíli and Nori, slowing Dwalin. “…Fall?” He looked to Belda as the small, slurred word registered, and the dazed, sleepy expression on her face only made him more alarmed. She gave a tiny shake of her head. “No, Gandalf. Want to fly.”

The pure, simple longing in her face and voice broke his heart even as he understood the cause. As Hobbits drew near their First Shift, the instincts and desires of their soul-form became nearly indistinguishable from their Hobbit-form, and more than a few Hobbits had come to a tragic end just days or weeks before their First Shift; fish-Hobbits drowning because they forgot they couldn’t yet breathe underwater, squirrel-Hobbits falling out of trees because they couldn’t tell when the branches were too thin to support their weight, bird-Hobbits plummeting because they’d jumped off or out of something.

He’d thought that Belda was some sort of fox, but he’d obviously been wrong; she was staring at the horizon as though she couldn’t survive without it, as though she were dying of thirst and it was an oasis.

But the Hobbits who succumbed as she was tended to be daydreamers, young men and women who lived with their heads in the clouds and a single toe, if that, on the ground. By and large, Belda seemed far more pragmatic than that. He never would have guessed that she’d be in danger of this…

Unless he’d been right. Gently, he tried to turn her head toward him, but though she didn’t fight him, her eyes stayed fixed on the clouds. Starting to feel desperate, he took hold of her forearm and lifted her hand into her line of sight. She blinked slowly, a faint furrow forming in her brow, and slowly (slowly) moved her fingers, looking at them as though she’d never seen them before. Just as painfully slowly, her eyes panned down to his hand, then followed his arm up to his shoulder, then finally met his eyes. Her eyes had seemed to skip, at times, not as though she were jumping from detail to detail as she might have normally, but as though she had to fight just to keep her eyes roughly on target. After that, he wasn’t especially surprised to see that one of her pupils was an ovate dot, while the other was as huge as though they’d been in complete darkness.

“Gandalf?”

His heart broke over again; she sounded as young as the first time they’d met. On impulse more than anything else, he released a quick pulse of magic, and she fell limply into his arms. The Company cried out, a few (five) voices louder than the rest, but he only cradled her to his chest and strode past the Dwarves to the stairs he’d seen before.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Fíli half-tripped down the last of the stairs alongside Kíli, heart in her throat. Dwalin was yelling hoarsely at Gandalf, as he had been all the way down, but between him, Thorin, and occasionally Bofur, it was almost impossible to make out the words. She and Kíli were at the tail of the group; he’d completely frozen when Gandalf turned around, Belda no more than a rag doll in his arms, and Fíli had needed his hand in hers as much as she thought he had.

The only person they’d ever lost, or at least the only one they’d known, was their Adad. Fíli’d been twenty, Kíli fifteen. He’d been a jeweler, but he’d often hunted when the weather was good, and one day, he simply hadn’t come home. It had taken Thorin and Dwalin four days to find him, and by then, he’d been long gone. The last time they’d spoken to their Adad, he’d covered them with kisses and promised to bring home something special. The last time they’d seen their Adad, he’d been still and grey, and neither of them had been able to look at him during the burial ceremony. They’d only held each others’ hands as though there were nothing else in the world but them, nothing they could rely on but one another.

They held each others’ hands now.

Fíli tried to remember what the last thing she’d said to Belda was. They hadn’t had a chance to speak in the tree, so it must have been before the cav— no, just after Belda was reunited with them, Fíli had asked what she’d smelled. ‘What is it’. Were those going to be the last words she ever said to her? Belda had spoken after that, at least twice, nothing personal, nothing non-urgent, just battlefield orders, but Fíli hadn’t responded.

Neither had Kíli. As Gandalf called Óin loudly enough for even him to hear, Fíli tore her eyes from Belda and looked to her brother. His expression was as dark as his bloodless face was pale, and Fíli remembered how he’d fought when Belda had fallen. He was as mute now, as intense, but now there was nothing to fight. There was nothing threatening them, threatening Belda. There was nothing he could do.

There was nothing any of them could do, except, it seemed, Óin. Dwalin swore, quite creatively, at Gandalf, as he set down Belda, and the wizard finally seemed to snap. Drawing up to his full height with a glare black enough to fell a Troll, his voice thundered. “I will thank you to stop badgering me, Dwalin son of Fundin!”

Dwalin swore again, and matched Tharkûn’s glare. “Who are you to—”

“I am her Godfather!”

“AND I AM HER FATHER!” Fíli gaped at Dwalin; the braid he’d given her had made it clear enough, but seeing and hearing it were two very different things. The entire Company seemed to agree with her, as even Óin fell silent, watching Dwalin, wide-eyed. Voice thick, eyes shining, Dwalin continued more quietly, “If she’ll have me. Now what is wrong with my Nâthu-ib-Bujbu?”

For a few moments, Gandalf just stared at Dwalin, seeing what, Fíli couldn’t tell, but with a solemnity in his expression that she suspected meant he was considering more than the obvious. Slowly, he nodded, and knelt beside Belda, eyes never leaving Dwalin. Fíli and Kíli moved a bit closer to hear him. “She has a concussion, severe enough that she wasn’t aware of anything but that she wasn’t flying anymore and wanted to be again. I don’t think she was aware that she couldn’t fly under her own power.”

Dwalin staggered back as though he’d taken a blow to the chest. “She— If—”

Gandalf nodded grimly. “I thought it best to place her in a deep sleep for the time being.”

Nori, surprisingly, was the one to speak up, sharply. “What good’s that? Just heal her!”

Tharkûn’s glare was just as sharp. “I am not a healer by trade, Nori. It took much of my ability to heal Thorin, and I cannot be sure that I could heal Belda sufficiently at the moment.” Shaking his head, he sighed. “If I were to try now and her condition is more severe than I’d anticipated, I could very well fail to realize she was not yet well, and she would suffer the consequences.”

“So what you did…?”

Gandalf met Dwalin’s eyes evenly. “As I said, she is in a deep sleep. It will not heal her, but neither will she worsen. Once I’ve gathered enough strength to be sure I can restore her completely, I will wake her and do so. Until then, she will not dream, nor feel pain from any of her wounds, and there is at least one which must be tended before she wakes.”

The mithril in his voice was odd, but Óin spoke before anyone could ask. “These wounds need cleaning, and I’ll need medicines.”

After a moment or two of silence, Bombur lifted a hand. “If you tell me what you need, I could look around.”

Nodding briskly, Óin began going over a list, but Fíli was distracted by Kíli’s hand turning to stone in hers. She looked to him automatically, only to see that his lowered eyes were as flinty as his grip; after another moment, his head snapped up. “I’ll go with Bombur.”

“Kíli.”

He gave Thorin a brief nod, but his eyes returned to Gandalf and Óin almost at once. “If there’s game to be found, I’ll bring it back. If there isn’t, my eyes are sharper than Bombur’s.”

Bombur looked relieved; Óin looked satisfied, as did Gandalf; Dwalin and Thorin both looked as though they didn’t know whether to laud Kíli for his initiative or forbid him to venture out of sight, and Fíli wasn’t sure which she’d prefer they do. Finally, Thorin gave a single nod. “Fíli—”

“Lass, you’ll help me.” Fíli wasn’t sure Óin had actually heard Thorin begin to address her, but he certainly saw Thorin’s glower. “I need a lass to help tend the Burglar, and I don’t think any of the rest of ye qualify.”

Thorin opened his mouth again, but Dwalin cut him off. “The lad’s as capable as any of us, Thorin.”

Gandalf chimed quietly in, “The Eagles carried us some miles. The Orcs will not catch up to us in a single night.”

Thorin’s expression darkened as he thought, and Kíli squeezed Fíli’s hand gently. He gave her an apologetic look when she turned to him, but she knew him too well to think that he’d do any differently if he had no hope of being forgiven. Besides, there was nothing to forgive; if he hadn’t volunteered, Fíli probably would have done it for him. With a half-smile, she squeezed his hand, too, before letting go as he did and going to Óin as he went to Bombur. As Kíli passed their uncle, Thorin grabbed his arm, drawing him to a stop just long enough for him to rumble, “Stay alert.”

Recognizing the concern for what it was, Kíli couldn’t quite hide the affection in his eyes as he nodded soberly at Thorin’s words. Fíli might not have, either, if she hadn’t been close enough now to Belda to see the state she was in.

Swallowing hard, Fíli couldn’t respond when Óin directed her to carry Belda to the stream, she couldn’t point out Nori slipping after Kíli and Bombur, and she couldn’t argue when Dwalin lifted Belda first, as gently as though she were a newborn. She and Óin followed behind him until he reached the river. Remembering Belda’s insistence on not being undressed by a man in Rivendell, Fíli moved beside Dwalin and laid a hand on his arm.

He met her eyes slowly, and the unshed tears in his made her eyes burn in sympathy. But she held his gaze until he dropped his eyes to Belda again. He watched her for a long moment, pain clear in every line of his face, before touching his forehead gently to hers. He let loose a shuddering breath, drew back, and lowered her carefully to the shore. Once she was settled, he still seemed reluctant to move (or even look) away from her, and Fíli again touched his arm. “Óin and I will need to focus on her, so if you could stand guard…”

She wasn’t sure how to finish without it being obvious that she was reaching, but Dwalin just nodded rapidly, blinking just as quickly, and drew his axes as he stood. Fíli might have only been looking for a reason for him to keep his dignity, but she couldn’t help but feel a little safer nonetheless; her excuse had the benefit of being true.

Dwalin stood with his back to them at the edge of the trees, but Fíli didn’t move until Óin sat a few feet away, just enough ahead that he’d have to turn to see Belda. Then Fíli began undressing Belda.

With every piece of clothing she removed, at least two injuries were brought to light, but thankfully, she didn’t need to remove any of Belda’s underthings. Even so, it was more skin than she’d seen in Rivendell, and she could barely even be glad that there weren’t any scars on her legs; as the breeze picked up, Belda’s skin pebbled, though her expression didn’t change in the slightest. Her injuries meant that Fíli couldn’t replace any of the articles she’d removed, at least not until she was tended to, but she could and did lay her jacket over as much of her as she could without touching an open wound. It left her left leg, shoulders, and arms uncovered, but most of her was hidden, at least.

She only needed to step into Óin’s view to get his attention, and the two of them set to work. Dwalin intercepted someone a half-hour or so in, though she couldn’t hear if it was Bombur or Kíli, and she collected the bundle or herbs and roots from him once whoever it was was gone. The work went no faster once they had the supplies, but by midday, all of Belda’s wounds were tended to as thoroughly as was possible, all the blood had been washed off, and they were carrying her back on a rough-made stretcher. Close inspection had shown that Belda had two broken ribs, at the edge of a purple-black bruise that stretched horizontally across her abdomen. Fíli could only hope that Gandalf’s magic would be able to heal them, at least partially.

Though, she wasn’t sure as much would be needed as if she were a Dwarrowdam. Fíli and Kíli had gotten more than their share of scrapes when they were Dwarflings, and she didn’t remember any of hers scabbing over as quickly as Belda’s cuts were. Óin hadn’t said anything, but he’d had an odd expression when he saw them.

But still, the swelling at the back of Belda’s head made Fíli’s blood go cold, and the suspiciously Goblin-bite-sized chunk taken out of her right ear, just under the point, had made her sick to her stomach. Though, to be precise, it hadn’t been the bite itself. It had been that some of Belda’s ear was still dangling by a thread’s width of flesh, and Óin had had to cut it off before they could bandage it. He’d grumbled something about it already healing past being able to stitch it back together, but Fíli hadn’t paid too much attention to anything but keeping her stomach from rebelling entirely.

On the way back to the camp, Óin led the way, finding the easiest path, and Fíli held the front end of the stretcher so that Dwalin could watch Belda as they went; he’d been completely silent since sending off whoever had brought the supplies, but it was obvious how much it wore at him, not being able to hold Belda. Fíli’d redressed her once they were done, but it was easy to see, even so, that she was half-covered in makeshift bandages.

Perhaps that was why the camp was so silent when they reached it. Fíli knew it was why Kíli’s eyes were suspiciously bright as he watched them, and she suspected (though she felt a pang to even think such) that it was why Ori looked as though he were about to cry. It was completely possible that he was just worried for Belda like Fíli was, as a friend, but… they had been spending an awful lot of time together. And Belda did seem head over heels for Kíli, but that didn’t mean Ori knew that.

Disgusted with herself, Fíli reminded herself that she was a Princess. Nothing could happen between her and Ori, and no matter how it hurt, Belda was a better match for him. But it still hurt.

As Fíli and Dwalin set Belda carefully down, Óin began his report; Dwalin sat next to Belda, holding her uninjured hand, while Fíli made her way over to Kíli to take his hand, in turn. “Two cuts on her leg, healing nicely, but she’ll limp for a few days, at least; scratches on her arms, shoulders, and foot, already scabbing over, should be gone day after tomorrow, I’d guess; she’s got a cut on the side of her hand, another on the back of her arm, that’ll hurt like the dickens, might scar; she got hit by something, I’d guess during the battle, that broke two of her ribs, might have cracked a few more, but I can’t tell, and I hope to Mahal that you’ll be able to fix that, wizard, because I’ve no way to bind them and no way to ensure they heal properly; she’s covered in bruises, but some should be gone by this time tomorrow, most by the day after, the rest by the end of the week, I’d say.”

“That’s not possible.”

Kíli’s expression fairly screamed that he was just as incredulous as Ori, but all he could do was look at his sister, wide-eyed. Fíli squeezed his hand reassuringly as Gandalf huffed. “I assure you, it is, Ori. Hobbits may be more fragile than Dwarves, but they have a capacity to heal naturally that is quite beyond any of the other Races. And yes, I believe I’ll be able to take care of both her head and ribs, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to repair everything. The two areas alone will require me to wait until this evening or early next morning to heal her, and staying put longer than that would be inadvisable, I should think.”

Thorin’s expression twitched into a glower, but Fíli saw his eyes flick to Dwalin, brushing his thumb over Belda’s comparatively-tiny hand, then to Belda herself, still as death and not looking much better. His jaw clenched, but he nodded. “Then we break camp in the morning.”

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

The wait until Gandalf could heal Belda was as bad as waiting for Thorin to give her the bloody contract had ever been. Dwalin trusted that Tharkûn could heal her, he’d healed Thorin, after all, but that didn’t change the fact that for the time being, his nathith may as well have been at death’s door.

But mostly, he was angry at himself. When she’d found them again (and he was under no illusions about that; she had found them, not the other way around), he’d seen her throat and he’d seen the Orc-blood, but he hadn’t even noticed her ear, let alone any of the other injuries. It was possible that she’d acquired them in the fight with the Orcs, of course, but he didn’t think she had.

But then again, he’d lost track of her long enough for her to get a concussion. Who knew what else he’d missed?

And then, he’d seen her while they’d been flying, and just because she’d been on an Eagle’s back, like the rest of them, rather than being held like Thorin, he’d assumed that she was unhurt. He’d thought Thorin was the more pressing patient, he’d thought it wouldn’t matter if he looked away from her for a few minutes. She might have wandered off the edge of the cliff while he was distracted.

That was hardest of all, while he waited. The constant, kaleidoscopic barrage of scenarios where she walked off while Gandalf was healing Thorin, where the wizard didn’t catch her before she walked off after Thorin’s apology, where she simply succumbed to her wounds before anyone could do anything. Where Dwalin failed to protect her, in a million different ways.

He’d called himself her father, he’d claimed her as his Nâthu-ib-Banth, and at the first opportunity, he’d turned his back on her. Thorin was his best friend, it was true, and Thorin was his King, but Thorin had twelve Dwarves and a wizard to protect him. Most of them, Dwalin wouldn’t trust with their own safety, let alone their King’s, but Glóin was an experienced warrior, as was Bifur, and Fíli and Kíli were extraordinarily skilled for their ages. He wouldn’t trust Thorin to any single one of them, but the four of them combined, especially with the rest of the Company as an extra line of defense, he would trust with nearly anyone. Not if the Company were divided, of course, or if there were more wounded than only Thorin, but as it had happened, he should have trusted them to watch Thorin. He should have gone to Belda as soon as he set foot on that bloody oversized boulder.

He’d sworn never to leave her alone. He’d broken his word twice over.

By all rights, he should have shorn his beard the second Gandalf gave his diagnosis. But that would mean leaving Belda. She was too still, too pale. She looked dead. The only reason he could keep his composure in the slightest was that he could feel the (albeit negligible) warmth of her hand, the pulse in her thumb. When she was safe, when she was well, then he would keep his word.

When the wizard knelt beside Belda sometime around midnight, Dwalin steeled himself to be told to move, but instead Gandalf looked at him, with such profound pity that Dwalin could barely breathe, and told him (quietly, but in no uncertain terms) to stay just where he was.

The healing itself was unimpressive; Gandalf held a hand over her, closed his eyes, said something in no language Dwalin had ever heard, and it was done. But the flash of pain that crossed her face faded quickly into a contented half-smile, and her fingers twitched in Dwalin’s. It was more than she’d moved in hours, and Dwalin couldn’t stop himself from grabbing hold of Gandalf’s sleeve as he began to stand. No words broke through the deluge of relief and gratitude that was flooding all through him, but the wizard seemed to understand Dwalin’s look anyway, and just smiled back, kindly, and quietly accepted his thanks.

Dwalin’s eyes fell to Belda again, and he had to blink hard when he realized she was breathing more easily than she had been. He laughed once, wetly, but tried to restrain himself to just a grin when she twitched at the noise. He couldn’t stop smiling, though, and couldn’t stop thinking, _‘she’ll live, she’ll heal, she’ll be fine_ ’.

He wasn’t sure how long he just sat there, running his thumb over her hand just so he could feel her fingers squeeze his in response, but a little while after it started to be an effort just to keep his eyes open, feet moved into view on Belda’s other side. Reluctantly, he looked away from her, up to Fíli and Kíli. Kíli’s eyes were fixed to Belda’s face, shining with the same relief Dwalin felt, but Fíli was watching him sympathetically. “Gandalf says someone needs to keep an eye on her while she sleeps.”

Dwalin’s response was automatic. “I can.”

Fíli just quirked an eyebrow at him. “You’re half asleep yourself. It’s been a long day. Kíli and I can take shifts, and we’ll wake you at dawn.”

Dwalin opened his mouth to argue, but a jaw-splitting yawn interrupted him. Scowling at Fíli, he laid down beside Belda, keeping hold of her hand, and had barely closed his eyes before sleep claimed him.

 

“Fíli, it’s not funny!” Kíli’s half-hiss, half-whine was quiet, but still just loud enough to reach Dwalin. He stirred slowly, weighing whether or not he could go back to sleep for a long moment before he realized he couldn’t feel Belda’s hand. His eyes snapped open, heart pounding, but the sight of Fíli with her fist stuffed in her mouth, desperately stifling laughter, was enough to give him pause. “He’s going to kill me— do you want to be an only child?”

Fíli snorted, and choked out through snickers, “We’ll just find out, then, won’t we?”

“Fíli!” Sluggishly, Dwalin focused on Kíli. It was a little difficult, since it wasn’t quite yet dawn and his shape was strangely bulky, but slowly Dwalin was able to make out Kíli’s blushing, pleading face, his arms stretching behind him as he propped himself on his hands, nearly vertical, and the shape of Belda, curled up in his lap—

A flood of rage swept over him, and he wasn’t sure what he might have done if Belda hadn’t given a sleepy sigh and snaked her arm around Kíli’s neck, nosing the underside of his jaw. Kíli’s eyes screwed shut, his jaw and hands clenching, before he looked up at his sister again. “Fíli. Help me.”

She just laughed, and though Dwalin was in no mood to do the same, his anger began to drain away. He’d woken more than once to find Belda curled up beside him when he knew for a fact she’d been a full pace away when they’d settled down for the night, so it wasn’t impossible that she might do similarly to someone else, especially when she was as fond of Kíli as she was. That didn’t mean he was just going to let this go on.

He stood; Kíli paled considerably; Fíli laughed harder. Deliberately, he stepped over to Kíli, gently untangled Belda’s arm from him, and lifted her into his arms. She squirmed at first, but clutched at his jacket once he was holding her, a contented smile just visible with her hair finally beginning to spring free of the braid. Kíli fell back, looking relieved, though Fíli gave a mock-disappointed pout.

Mindful of Belda’s wounds, Dwalin settled back down carefully, tucking her against his side as he laid down again. She squirmed into a more comfortable position, but never woke, and was still after only a few moments.

“I didn’t touch her.” Dwalin turned his head to look at Kíli, sitting up, now, his shoulders hunched slightly. Holding Dwalin’s eyes, his own wide and intense, he repeated just as quietly, “I didn’t touch her. I swear.”

Fíli spoke up, slightly more composed now. “She just sort of slithered on top of him, really. Like a cat. You should’ve seen his face!” She collapsed into cackles, and Dwalin’s eyes returned to Kíli.

Remembering how stiff the Prince had been, and how panicked, and knowing how Belda could be when she was asleep, Dwalin nodded slowly. “I believe you.”

After a frozen moment, Kíli obviously relaxed; Dwalin had to wonder what sort of retribution the boy had been expecting. The thought amused him, and he fell asleep again with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belda's reaction tomorrow. Also, 'nathu-ib-banth' means 'daughter of the solemn promise' and 'nathu-ib-bujbu' means 'daughter of (the) choice'. Dwalin claiming Belda as his Nathu-ib-Banth puts an onus on him to protect her like his own, but that's it, and it's fairly informal. Him claiming her as his Nathu-ib-Bujbu is a declaration that if he had a daughter, he'd want her to be exactly like Belda/that he'd have Belda as his daughter if he could, but it's as informal as the other. Neither one puts any pressure on her to accept or reject it, only on him to fulfill it.  
> Or at least that's how it works in this 'verse. (^u^)  
> À demain!  
> (P.S., is the scene at the end with Kíli as funny as I hope it is? It makes me laugh, anyway, but my sense of humor is weird. But seriously, poor Kíli; he's trying so hard to be a gentleman and Belda (literally unconsciously) is so not making it easy.)


	18. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking and Dreams (and Waking Dreams)

Belda ached. Everything hurt except her right elbow, and for some reason, she was lying on her left side. She tried to roll over, but she felt oddly sluggish, and even opening her eyes was a trial. Sunlight hit her eyes, and even through her eyelids, it was painful. She groaned, and someone beside her gasped; another instant and she recognized Dwalin’s scent.

That explained why she felt so safe, she supposed, and why she leaned into his hand when he cupped her cheek. But even the belonging she felt with Dwalin couldn’t block the pain that shot through her when he tried to lift her. Some thread of stubbornness that persisted through the fog refused to let on how much pain she was in, but she couldn’t help a whimper. Dwalin snatched his hand away as though she’d burnt him, guilt and fear souring his scent; she shushed him weakly, and found his hand blindly, holding on as tightly as she could, though she doubted that was much to say at the moment. He (gently) returned her hold, but his scent didn’t change.

As she caught her breath, she forced her eyes open a crack, and frowned at the unfamiliar woods past Dwalin’s arm. “Where’re we?”

Her throat burned as she spoke, but a flash of memory came back to her, looking around the Company frantically with Dwalin’s arms around her, and how speaking had felt like breathing fire. She still couldn’t understand how fire-drakes like Smaug could do it; it sounded horrible. But her throat didn’t hurt as much now, though she still wouldn’t give any speeches for a few days, at least.

Dwalin answered quietly as she used her grip on him to pull herself up a little. “Under the Carrock, that was where the Eagles set us down.”

Frowning, she met his eyes. “Eagles?”

He matched her expression. “You don’t remember?”

He didn’t seem to be joking, and she thought carefully before shaking her head as much as she could without her neck protesting. “I had a strange dream about flying,” not like her usual flying dreams at all, “but no Eagles.”

“That wasn’t a dream, dear girl.” Automatically, she tried to look toward Gandalf, but between her general soreness and the light hurting her eyes, she barely moved before subsiding with a wince and a hiss. The fear in Dwalin’s scent strengthened, but his hand was steady, and she used her grip on him to pull herself slowly but surely upright; he wanted to help, she could tell, but, well. Everything hurt, so there really wasn’t anything he could do without hurting her more.

It took a minute or two, but she was sitting up soon enough, leaning heavily on Dwalin’s chest, and determinedly ignoring the dull ache in all the bruises on her back. Óin bustled over almost before she was sitting, and insisted on looking over her bandages to make certain she hadn’t opened her wounds again, and there were quite a lot of bandages. Kíli brought her a bowl of food once Óin was satisfied, but his face was a little redder than usual, and he only weakly returned her smile.

She did have more questions about where they were, how they’d gotten there, and so forth, but she was also spectacularly hungry, and Gandalf refused to answer her until she’d eaten at least one serving. Everyone else followed his lead, so in the end, it wasn’t until she set aside her half-finished third bowl that anyone spoke. “Belda, don’t you think—”

Cutting off Gandalf’s not-so-subtle nod to the unfinished serving, she crossed her arms dismissively. “I’ll finish it in a few minutes; I’ll burst if I don’t wait.”

He nodded soberly; she had to give up her semi-assured pose when her left arm protested, and glared at Fíli when she snickered. “I believe it’ll be easiest to fill in the gaps if you tell us what you remember first, my dear.”

Óin, watching as Bifur signed something, presumably what Gandalf was saying, since Óin’s ear trumpet was nowhere in sight, nodded emphatically. “And how you were injured, lass.” She raised an eyebrow at him, and he glared back. “If there’s a risk of infection, I need to know now.”

She wanted to argue, but unfortunately, he made sense. Shaking her head, she caught Ori’s eye. “Is there any water?”

He nodded, smiling broadly, and pulled her cup out of her pack before walking off into the trees; she blinked after him for a moment, but decided there was probably some sort of water source that way. Fíli’s expression caught her eye, though; she looked almost… well, almost heartbroken, though it was replaced after an instant with anger, then stubbornness. Filing it away to be considered later, Belda thought back to the last clear moment she remembered: holding her sword to the Hob-Goblin’s throat. That was after they were all separated, though.

She cleared her throat, holding back a wince. “So, um. The Goblins rushed us and I fell.” Gandalf’s eyebrow leapt up, but she tried to ignore him. “I think I hit my head in the fall, or maybe the landing, because I woke up in a cave, or a pit, of some sort. It didn’t have a ceiling, so I’ve no idea how far I fell.” Thoughtfully, she tilted her head to the sky, half-seeing the cave again. “There were mushrooms everywhere. Then… I don’t know what he was, really. I thought of him as a ‘Hob-Goblin’, but he wasn’t a Goblin, I know that.”

“How d’ye know that?”

Idly, she noted that Balin’s accent was thicker than usual, but she just blinked at him. “My sword. Elven blade, but it didn’t so much as flicker when it was just me and him. Therefore…” She shrugged slightly; thoughts returning to the memory, an echo of her panic in the moment returned. “He’s the one who…” Wincing, she touched her throat lightly, before reaching up to her ear; she’d forgotten about that, somehow, and only stopped herself from touching the injury through force of will.

“Why didn’t you fight him?”

Her eyes snapped to Thorin, and the memory of his casting her out of the pack returned with a vengeance. Deliberately, she looked away from him as she answered; Ori was just visible through the trees, carefully making his way back to the camp. “I did. I kicked him away at first, then tried to get my sword; I must have dropped it in the fall, because it was on the other side of the cave. While I was doing that, he jumped on me.” Her hip throbbed, and she traced the cuts through the bandage, brow furrowed. “That was when…”

“He had a sword?” Nori sounded off, somehow, and as she met her eyes, a ghost of something drifted through Belda, some half-remembered hurt that she didn’t have context for.

Putting aside the mystery for a few minutes, she shook her head. “No, I did. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t breathe, and—” The cut on her hand stung as she clenched her fist, and she stretched her hand out experimentally; it hurt, but there was no real damage to her hand. “I cut my hand on the blade, that’s how I found it. And then I wasn’t thinking, I just wanted to stop him, so I slashed back, and…” She touched the wounds on her leg lightly, letting the gesture speak for itself.

“And then?” Dwalin’s voice rumbled through her, and she smiled, despite the subject.

“I made him show me the way out.”

“‘Made him’?” Bofur sounded mildly incredulous, but Ori just snorted as he set the cup of water beside her.

“You think she can’t be intimidating if she wants to?” A flicker of guilt ran through her, but Ori met her eyes as he finished, his expression reassuring, and her guilt subsided to the background again.

As Ori sat beside an again-stiff Fíli, Belda half-smiled at Bofur. “I had a sword to his throat. It seemed to motivate him.”

Bofur’s brows shot up as Dwalin chuckled, and warmth spread through her as the warrior dropped a kiss to the top of her head. Despite how her headache sharpened at the motion, she tilted her head up to smile at him, and warmth spread through her again when he smiled softly back.

Settling back, she returned to the story. “He led me to the exit, or at least an exit, albeit reluctantly. Took hours. There were Goblins there, of course, and he wanted to go back; he’d been trying to convince me not to make him go there all the while, so I agreed. And then…” The look on his face came back to her as vividly as if she were still looking at him, the fear in his eyes heartbreaking now that she wasn’t almost as scared. “I was going to kill him. But I couldn’t do it. He was scared of me, and—”

Explaining why, exactly, she’d changed her mind was out of the question, so she settled for, simply, “I was scared, too. I couldn’t kill him. So I knocked him out.” She hesitated for a beat; she needed to tell Gandalf about the ring, but could she risk it affecting the Company like it had the Goblins? Trying to seem as though she were just trying to get comfortable, she adjusted her waistcoat and jacket, brushing her fingers over the circle of gold. It would keep. “I hid him so he wouldn’t be found before he came to, and I went back to the exit.”

“You saw what killed the Goblins?” Thorin’s expression was oddly intense, but Belda could only blink at him, perplexed. Looking down, she confirmed that she was still wearing the blood-soaked clothes, and tugged at a particularly drenched patch, raising an eyebrow at Thorin pointedly. It took him a moment, eyes flicking between hers and her clothes, but he gave her an incredulous look once he realized. “You?”

If she hadn’t still been warm through from Dwalin’s implied praise, she might have gotten snippy, but as it was, she just shrugged. “They were in the way.”

Thorin gaped at her, and the rest of the Company, even Gandalf, seemed just as shocked. Reminding herself that they hadn’t seen her in a proper fight, she took the opportunity to take a few sips of water. “You killed five Goblins?”

She started to nod at Balin, but had to stop with an embarrassed grimace as she remembered the fight in its entirety. “Well, I killed two, really. Two of them were too busy fighting each other to realize I was close enough to kill them, and one sort of impaled himself on my sword.”

Bifur said something, nodding sagely, and Bofur translated, watching her thoughtfully, “Still counts.”

For some reason, the guarded approval in Bifur’s expression made her blush, and she took another sip to hide it; she hadn’t really interacted with Bifur, after the first night with the Company, but she’d seen him fight, and she knew full well that he was one of the better fighters in the Company. His approval still didn’t mean as much to her as Dwalin’s, but maybe somewhere around Thorin’s.

“Anyway,” she cleared her throat, “one of them sliced my arm, and another grabbed my ankle, tripped me.” She moved both limbs slightly as she spoke, testing her range of motion as much as she could while sitting, and felt a bit relieved to find that her foot was sore, but otherwise fine, and her arm hurt, but was a nuisance, not a hindrance. “And then I ran outside, and you all saw the rest.”

Balin held up a hand, expression conciliatory. “Humor us. What do you remember of the battle?”

Confused, she tilted her head as she frowned; they were there for that part, weren’t they? Nevertheless, she thought back. “The Orcs came, we ran, we climbed trees, Gandalf started lighting things on fire—”

Gandalf scoffed, but she saw the edge of a smile before Kíli distracted her, grinning. “You nailed Azog in the face.”

For a moment, she just stared at him. Then she remembered, and a laugh burst out of her. “I did! Oh, his face!” Shoulders shaking as she laughed, she leaned back against Dwalin. But there hadn’t been much humor after that, and her mirth drained away quickly. Her eyes met Thorin’s. “You tried to fight Azog.”

It came out more accusing than she’d intended, and Thorin stiffened, eyes flashing. “I ‘tried’ to do nothing. I foug—”

“Oh, so you meant to get knocked down and knocked out, then? You meant to leave yourself and your Company at Azog’s mercy?” Another flash of memory returned, the reason she hadn’t helped Thorin immediately, and the hangdog look in Nori’s eyes was all the confirmation Belda needed to be left with a bad taste in her mouth.

Thorin opened his mouth to shout again, but Gandalf’s voice rang through the clearing. “Enough!”

He glared at both her and Thorin in turn, and Belda couldn’t help but lower her head. Her eyes met Thorin’s, and he gave her a look that promised the conversation wasn’t over; she was fine with that, seeing as how she wasn’t done with her side, either. Still, she felt a bit like when she’d gotten into a brawl with her cousin Sigismond when they were ten or eleven. They’d been caught in the middle of it and forcibly pulled apart, and she’d felt much the same then as she did now.

After that, they’d wound up fighting nearly every time they saw each other until she realized how much her fighting worried her Da and she had to be the better person and walk away if she saw Sigismond; for the Company’s sake, at least, she hoped there was a better way to resolve things with Thorin.

Part of her, though, couldn’t help but find it a little funny that a nearly-two-hundred-year-old, battle-hardened Dwarf was behaving so much like a cranky fauntling.

Of course, dropping the argument didn’t mean she couldn’t make a point. “So, after Thorin was needlessly and stupidly wounded defending his pride,” Thorin growled; Gandalf glared at both of them again, “I… that’s right, I ran down, too.”

Thorin shot her a smirk, and she glared at him, phantom claws extending and retracting with her annoyance. “Oh, shut up, that's completely different.” Gandalf glowered at them, and she (reluctantly) refocused on her memory. “I killed the Orc that was about to kill you, Dwalin, Kíli, and Fíli helped me kill the next few,” Dwalin snorted; she elbowed him, “then—”

Remembering the agony, she let out a hiss, reaching up to her ear again, and this time she let herself brush the bandages, feather-light. Even that sent a paroxysm of pain through her, and she snatched her hand away, blinking hard. It was a long moment before she was able to unclench her jaw, and her ear throbbed insistently for some time after that; ignoring it as best she could, she looked at Gandalf rather than face any of the Company’s confusion. “Azog charged me while I was incapacitated, and… that’s right, I jumped toward his swing.”

Dwalin let out a shocked hiss, his scent flooding with horror, and she looked up at him as the Company exclaimed. “Why would you do something as foolish as that, kit?”

He was only concerned, she knew, but the question rankled. She wasn’t a child. “He was trying to hit me like he did Thorin. Seeing as how I don’t wear armor, it would have killed me. If I’d ducked, he’d have hit me in the head, there was no way I could jump out of range in time, so I jumped toward him. I got hit with the shaft instead of the mace itself, which is probably the only reason I’m still alive.”

She glared up at him for a long moment; his expression didn’t soften in the slightest, still almost condemning, but his scent was still horrified, and worried. She knew better than to trust her eyes alone. After a few unchanging seconds, she turned back to face the Company. “Everything’s a bit of a blur after that. I remember waking up beside a boulder with a headache, I think I remember Azog walking toward me, but he was just a blur, so I can’t be sure, but I could have sworn I dreamt the next bit.”

“What happened?” Balin’s expression was calm, no trace of the shock from a minute before; Belda met his eyes hesitantly.

“Well, the Orcs started flying away. And then I was flying—” Simple, pure, yearning swept through her, far stronger than the way she usually felt after a flying dream, and she had to blink away a blur, swallowing hard, before she could continue. “I was flying, and then I wasn’t, and then I woke up just now.”

The clearing was silent. Guilt crept into Dwalin’s scent again, but the discomfited look on Thorin’s face held her attention. “There were words spoken after the Eagles delivered us. Do you remember none of them?”

Frowning, Belda tilted her head. Thorin looked almost… contrite. Watching him, she shook her head. “Noises, blurs. No words, or even voices, really. No faces. I only know I saw Azog because he’s practically albino.”

There! There was a flash of… something, something pained, strained, in Thorin’s eyes, but he hid it quickly. The silence seemed tense, now, and she picked up her food again when the Company didn’t ask anything further. It was cold, of course, but she was hungry again, so she wolfed it down anyway.

Gandalf cleared his throat. “Well, then.”

 

Another two bowls of food later, Gandalf was nearing the end of his explanation; it might not have taken as long if the rest of the Company hadn’t interjected comments through it all, but she was too touched (and more than a little embarrassed) by their concern for her to be irritated. Besides, it gave her time to finish eating. “…was obvious that you were concussed. I’m only thankful I was able to stop you.”

“So am I.” Belda was barely able to gather enough volume to be audible; her time in the caves had been frightening, of course, but she’d only actually been afraid for her life when the Hob-Goblin was choking her. The idea that she’d come within a hair’s-breadth of actually dying was sobering, especially after the wargs, and especially Azog’s warg, had made it much more difficult not to remember the Fell Winter. For all that she loved heights, and that she ached to fly under her own power, death was a chilling thought.

Dwalin was stone behind her, and most of the Company looked nearly as solemn. Nori looked guilt-ridden (though Belda doubted anyone who didn’t have a fox for a mother would be able to tell), which a newly-raw part of Belda felt was only fair; Fíli and Ori looked ashamed, as well, but Belda suspected they only felt guilty for not realizing how dazed she was; Kíli felt somewhat the same as his sister and future brother-in-law (or at least she hoped Ori would be his brother-in-law someday), but far more so (if she hadn’t had quite so many injuries, she might have gone to him at one point, but perhaps it was for the best; he was still being odd); but Thorin still held most of her attention. There was something she was missing, probably something to do with what he’d asked, about if she’d heard the ‘words spoken’, especially since Gandalf’s account had skimmed over everything after he’d healed Thorin.

She looked between the two elders now, waiting for one of them to broach the subject. When neither did, she huffed. “Honestly. What aren’t you saying, Gandalf?”

Gandalf hesitated. “Perhaps it would be best to wait, my dear, until you feel up to it.”

“No.” Belda’d been half-expecting Thorin to speak, but evidently Gandalf hadn’t, as he startled noticeably. Ignoring him, Thorin stepped forward, and raised his voice to address the Company as a whole. “Miss Baggins and I need to have a private word.”

At the last words, and the all-too-familiar tone, Belda stiffened, suddenly cold, and suddenly in Bag-End again. Dwalin swore quietly in Khuzdûl (she recognized a word here and there, but not nearly enough to have any idea what he was saying) before murmuring urgently, “He doesn’t mean anything, kit, any more than I did.”

Turning to look up at him, she grabbed his sleeve, needing the anchor; she almost didn’t recognize her voice, it was so small, and so quiet that she wasn’t even sure Dwalin heard her for a moment. “You promise?”

Eyes soft and scent sorrowful, he covered her hand with his and squeezed gently. “I promise.” Slowly, her heart began to slow from the gallop it had been at, and she turned to lean against Dwalin’s chest again; as she pulled on Dwalin’s hands so his arms were close enough that she could feel the heat without touching any of her wounds, she met Thorin’s eyes, and her breath caught. He looked… genuinely concerned. Startled, yes, faintly disapproving, yes, though she couldn’t tell why, but concerned.

She didn’t understand. He’d cast her out. Why did he care?

Thorin shot a look at Dwalin, but a hint of anger crept into Dwalin’s scent as the panic faded. “You said it in front of the entire Company last time, Thorin. I’m not going anywhere.” He squeezed her hand again on the last sentence, and she relaxed a little further. Despite her automatic misgivings, though, she was intrigued. ‘Last time’?

Thorin glared at Dwalin for a long moment, presumably because they were having a staring contest, and she was surprised to see hints of hurt in their leader’s expression. Though, she’d noticed over the two and a half months since leaving the Shire that they were close friends, so perhaps that explained it. The two of them backed down almost simultaneously, and part of Belda couldn’t help but find the dynamic between them curious: Thorin was the leader of the pack, or King, if that’s what Dwarves called it, and Dwalin was his subordinate, but at times they behaved as equals. Dwalin almost always obeyed Thorin’s orders without question, but even so, Thorin respected him. Hobbits packs were more democratic than monarchies sounded, but still, a Hobbit commander wouldn’t give ground as Thorin was, except to his Rándýr-Verndari.

She wasn’t sure what she thought of it in general, but she easily relaxed further against Dwalin, and pulled his arms closer around her. Worse comes to worst, he would stand his ground against Thorin if he tried to cast her out entirely. She trusted that.

(She really wasn’t sure what she thought of being able to trust him so completely, but she couldn’t fight it, and wouldn’t if she could.)

Sighing quietly, but heavily, Thorin sat a few paces in front of her and Dwalin, and met her eyes steadily. “I owe you an apology, Miss Baggins.”

Stunned, she barely heard her automatic reply. “It’s fine, no apology necessary.”

Thorin’s eyes flicked to Dwalin for a moment, then returned to Belda, jaw clenched. “Yes, I’m told, it is. What I said on the cliff was largely untrue.” An inaudible growl rumbled through Dwalin, and therefore Belda, and she looked up, eyes wide, to see a glare as dark as any of Thorin’s on Dwalin’s face. Thorin huffed faintly, and she looked to him again. “Completely untrue.”

The cliff… She blinked. ‘No place amongst us’? ‘Should never have come’? That was what he was referring to? Brow furrowed, she shook her head. “But…”

Try as she might, she couldn’t find any further words, and Dwalin squeezed her hands lightly, his words just as soft. “We aren’t Hobbits, kit.”

“Even if they had been true, I now owe you my life. I would gr—”

“For what?” Thorin gaped at her for a moment, looking nearly as confused as she felt.

“You saved my life.”

She frowned at him. “Well, obviously, but why would you owe me anything?”

Thorin glowered at her; Dwalin was starting to shake, for some reason. “Do you put so little value on—”

“Value?!”

“—fe of a Ki—”

“What do you mean ‘value’?!?” She almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing— well, not ‘hearing’, exactly, since she was barely listening to Thorin, but still, “What sort of person do you think I am?”

It was lucky for her that she’d leaned forward as she argued with her leader, as Dwalin’s shaking turned to full-blown belly laughter, and he fell back, still roaring out guffaws. She and Thorin exchanged an incredulous ( _what in Eru’s name is he doing_ ) glance before focusing fully on the insensible third. He only continued laughing, though, and after a minute or so, Belda faced Thorin again, raising a brow at him. “Well?”

He scowled. “Well, what?”

She scoffed. “You’ve known him decades longer than I have; say something!”

“The two of you have been inseparable for weeks!”

“The two of you were practically inseparable when I met you, so you must know him better than I do!”

“Obviously not, or else I’d have seen what was happening long before the Giants!”

Bewilderment abruptly cooled Belda’s ire, and though Thorin’s eyes didn’t soften in the slightest, hers did as she furrowed her brow. “What are you talking ab—”

A vicious (and undoubtably dark) cuss in Khuzdûl cut her off, and as Thorin’s volume lowered, his venom grew until it dripped off his words almost tangibly. “In over a century and a half, Dwalin has never defied me, and yet he would for a complete stranger?” He shook his head; Belda felt numb, desperately screaming that his implication wasn’t true, but she couldn’t even move enough to blink away the blur at the edge of her vision, let alone to actually speak. “No. You’ve—”

“Thorin.” Faintly, Belda realized there was pressure at her back again, but she only connected it to the voice when Thorin’s eyes flicked up, then back to her, then abruptly widened and he looked away. “Belda.”

Dwalin’s voice was soft, but a bit too much pressure on her left hand made her wince; his scent changed, but it took her a long moment to recognize the guilt, and even longer to realize her wince had been audible. Once she did, she tore her eyes away from Thorin, staring at the ground to try and hide the heat building there, but Thorin had already been staring back at her for a few seconds by that point. Warm air ruffled the hair on top of her head, the feeling familiar somehow she couldn’t place, and he used a finger under her chin to turn her head gently, far enough that she could see one of the straps of his axe-holsters, but not far enough to hurt.

The Khuzdûl resumed, quiet, but not soft, and this time it seemed to be a conversation between the two men. As they spoke, Dwalin delicately undid Belda’s braid, careful not to let her hair brush against her ear. She only felt his fingers in her hair at first, which was still enough to lull her half to sleep, despite how her hair caught on his callouses, but then she felt a wide-tooth comb against her scalp. An exhausted haze bled into memories of sitting in her Da’s lap while he combed leaves and sticks from her misadventures turned to waking dreams of Dwalin taking her father’s place in Bag-End’s living room. She felt Dwalin’s callouses, but heard her Da singing; Dwalin’s scent surrounded her, but she felt the heat from the fireplace; she recognized Thorin’s voice, but couldn’t disabuse herself of the overpowering sense of home and pack and family.

She hadn’t felt it so strongly in eleven years.

She couldn’t remember quite why at the moment, but she didn’t really care. She was warm and safe and comfortable, and she slept.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Careful not to disturb the sleeping Hobbit, Dwalin finished off the new braid, this one curling from the top of her head down to her left shoulder, away from her injured ear. She was curled up in his lap like a cat, her head resting on his knee in such a way that kept her bandaged ear over the edge and painless. The position meant that Dwalin could just see her contented expression in profile, but Thorin could see her full face, and at this point, he wasn’t able to pretend he couldn’t.

“Now do you see?” Dwalin kept his voice soft, having noticed once or twice already that Belda tended to grow distressed if he sounded angry. Thorin’s expression betrayed nothing, but Dwalin knew him too well to think he wasn’t listening. Just as he knew him too well to have read anything but frustration at the sudden stranger coming between them in his earlier words to Belda. But Belda didn't. “She’s a child, Thorin, or she may as well be. She’s not manipulating me, she’s not trying to take over the Company, and she’s risked her life as often or more so as anyone in the Company since she began traveling with us. From what she told me in Rivendell, I’d think she reacted like she did because she couldn’t believe anyone could even think of putting their own well-being above anyone else’s.”

Thorin scoffed hollowly. “No one could be so selfless. No Dwarf—”

“She’s not a Dwarf.” Thorin scowled; Dwalin huffed lightly. “I’ve been reminding her for weeks that we aren’t Hobbits, that we don’t think as she does. It never occurred to me that I might need to make the opposite reminder.”

Thorin didn’t respond. Dwalin couldn’t hold it against him, really. The two of them had seen too much greed and too little generosity in their lives, in the Men and Elves and even fellow Dwarrow who had neither reason to help nor hinder them. The idea that anyone would help without expectation of reward or even recognition was nearly laughable. It had taken Dwalin weeks of observing Belda for him to actually believe what he was telling Thorin now, but he did.

“When she wakes up, try and do your best not to be a complete ‘utnrukhs.”

A bark of a laugh burst out of Thorin at the insult, and he grinned crookedly at Dwalin. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Dwalin didn’t smile back. “This is my daughter, Thorin.” His friend’s grin faded slowly. “I haven’t had the chance to explain to her yet, but she’s my daughter whether or not I’m her father. You were out of line on the cliff and you were out of line a few minutes ago. She’s not a Dwarf. Her skin’s as thin as she is, because she’s had the stone dug out from under her so often that she hardly knows what she’s standing on anymore. Give her time to find her footing before you poke at her, binjabl.”

Thorin looked as though he might have responded, but a cacophonous crash came from the other side of camp, immediately chased by Bofur’s yelled “Sorry!”

Before he’d even gotten the first syllable out, Belda bolted upright, hand scrabbling at her hip. Dwalin only realized she was trying to draw the sword Dori still hadn’t gotten a chance to return to her when she smacked away the hand he offered and spun to face him, eyes wild and unseeing. An instant later she was scrambling back, hitting the ground with a cry that called Dwalin back to the moment she’d lost her grip on the cliffs, and a jolt of dread struck him. Thorin pushed to his feet, eyes wide, but she clambered away with a strangled gasp, favoring her injuries hugely, and Dwalin saw that Thorin understood at the same moment he did himself.

“Belda.” She startled at his voice, quiet though it was, and he tried to keep his tone level. “Belda, you’re safe, we’re all safe.” Slowly, he reached out, moving smoothly even as she flinched back, breathing ragged. “Belda. Please, kit, wake up.”

Her breath hitched; her brow furrowed above tear-filled eyes. “D— Dwalin?”

Heart in his throat, he couldn’t reply, just edged forward, eyes burning, until he could cup her cheek. Tears spilling over her cheeks, she lunged forward, into his arms, and he held her as gently as he could. Distantly, he heard Thorin and Gandalf calming the others down and sending them away, but he was too focused on the girl crying into his chest to listen. Careful not to touch her bandaged ear, he cradled the back of her head, pressing his lips to her crown. He was an idiot. She’d come out of the Goblins caves looking like death warmed over, how could she not have battle-dreams after that?

Her tremors faded slowly, lasting for several minutes after she calmed, but neither of them made any move to draw back until she was completely still. Then he only pulled back just far enough to touch his forehead to hers, and she didn’t open her eyes for a few moments more. “Kit?”

It was barely a whisper, but her mouth twitched into a hollow parody of a smile in response. “Lucid again, I think.”

He couldn’t hold back a relieved sigh, or a breathed, “Thank Mahal.”

He’d been trapped in battle-dreams more than once after Erebor, and again after Azanulbizar, and it was a fate he wouldn’t wish on anyone, least of all his Nâthu-ib-Banth. Thorin sat nearby again, but Dwalin barely noticed. Belda closed her eyes, expression broken. “I’m sorry.”

Dwalin jolted back to see her face better, and cupped her cheek with his free hand. “Kit, what the bloody uslukh do you have to be sorry for?”

She blinked up at him, gaping slightly, for a long moment, and he realized it was like her confusion from Rivendell. “I— I…”

Her breath hitched, and the familiarity of it was enough for him to know that it wasn’t just ‘like’ Rivendell, it was the same confusion, the same hint of fear, the same look as though he were missing something so obvious that she’d never doubted it. He really hated that look.

Gently, he asked, “Because of your dream?” Immediately, she flinched, an embarrassed flush rising in her cheeks, and he wanted nothing more than to just reassure her and have done with it, but they had an audience. “Kit, what happened when you had dreams like that in Bag-End?”

Her flush darkened, and she looked away, lowering her head until he could barely see her closed-off expression. “It doesn’t matter.”

Dwalin huffed. “It does.”

“It doesn’t.”

“It’s hurting you!” She flinched again; he sighed, heart aching. Gently, he swept his thumb over her cheek, and her eyes closed as she leaned into his hand. “Kit, what happened?”

She was silent for a long moment, but he could feel her shaking, the tremors from before running invisibly through her. “…Nothing.” Dwalin opened his mouth to press her to elaborate, but she continued, “If I was quiet. If I wasn’t… or if I fought, they—” Her voice broke; tears spilled over his hand and into his beard. “They locked me in, wouldn’t open the door until I was quiet for more than a few hours. Took two y— years before I stopped waking up screa—ming—”

She broke down again, quiet sobs wracking through her, and Dwalin wrapped his arms around her, resting his head on hers. As she clutched at him, he turned his head to the side, and fixed Thorin with a cold stare. The King returned his look, but there was pain in his eyes, the same pain Dwalin felt every time he learned more about Belda’s life since her parents died.

Her tears stopped more quickly that time, and Óin brought a cup of water before Dwalin even thought of it himself. She didn’t take it immediately, though, not even budging until after Óin had settled back down and the rest of the Company was occupied. The wizard, irritatingly, cleared his throat. “I think perhaps an exchange of definitions is in order.”

Dwalin and Thorin both shot him bewildered glances, and Dwalin guessed that Belda was as well, though he couldn’t see her face as she turned around to sit with her back to him again. “A what?”

Gandalf didn’t even spare the king a glance. “I will not repeat myself, Thorin.” Smoothly, he cut off Thorin’s sputter. “Now, Belda, why did you save Thorin?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are parts of this story that actually manage to make me feel sorry for Belda. Given that I have yet to write a (long) story that doesn't involve death/mutilation/torture/the emotional equivalent of any of the above, that says a lot. On a related note, I'm really trying to emphasize that she's basically seventeen and (in my opinion) handling some extremely stressful situations amazingly well. (Although, I did realize when I was writing the Trolls that Belda screams/cries a lot more than Bella did. In Belda's defense, she's not only younger than Bella, she also just doesn't have the experience/pain tolerance that Bella did, and she's dealing with pre-First-Shift hormones, so...)  
> Notes: 1) Thorin is actually a giant child, fight me. Also, for clarity's sake, Belda is not a reliable narrator when it comes to people speaking negatively about her. If Thorin had been talking to Ori or Bofur, she would have been able to read his emotions much more clearly. 2) ''utnrukhs' means 'man-orc', which is... yeah, not a nice name to call someone. What is it with dudes insulting each other all the time? On that note, 'binjabl' means 'brainless'. 3) 'uslukh' means 'dragon'.  
> Random Disclaimer: I was just looking over the earlier chapters I posted to make sure I wasn't repeating myself here in the notes, and I accidentally said Belda was 22 in like chapter 7. *inarticulate growling* HOW THE CRAP DID I DO THAT!?! Also, I am cross with all of you for not pointing that out. I am disappointed. So, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings, Belda is *not* 22, she is 32-almost-33. If she were 22, trust me, there would be no romance for her, only gen. (22 in Hobbit-years is basically 14, for the people who don't have the Hobbit/human age ratio memorized.)  
> Redamancy tomorrow! À demain!


	19. Thorin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's definitely a child in the Company (but it isn't Belda)

Thorin still wasn’t exactly happy about the wizard’s interruption, but he wanted to hear the girl’s answer, and so subsided. She stared back at Tharkûn, brow furrowed and cheeks oddly pink. “You know why.”

Gandalf held up a hand. “Be that as it may, tell us anyway. Why did you risk your life for Thorin?”

The Dwarf in question fixed his eyes on the Hobbit, loath to miss a single detail, a single clue that she might have ulterior motives; strangely, he realized that he didn’t want there to be anything sinister behind her actions. It still seemed impossible that anyone could genuinely be as selfless as she seemed, but after her actions on the cliff and the revelations since, he wanted to trust her. He wanted to believe that there could be someone outside his race who could be trusted as much as he trusted his kin.

It seemed impossible. But there wasn’t much about her thus far that seemed altogether possible, anyway.

He still wasn’t pleased with how she was stealing his right-hand-man’s aff— attention.

Thorin was Dwalin’s king, after all. It was only right that he spend the most time with him. Not with a little Sharbrugn girl he’d barely known two months.

He’d known Thorin nearly two centuries. He’d always been there when Thorin needed him. Now, every time Thorin looked to talk to him, he was with her.

Thorin couldn’t blame him for that at the moment, with her so injured, but still.

Her face scrunched into a baffled frown. “Well, what else was I meant to do? He’s my commander; I wasn’t about to just let him die!”

She’d spoken quickly enough that Thorin nearly missed one key word; he opened his mouth to ask what she meant by ‘commander’, but the wizard cut him off. “And he owes you nothing.”

It was a statement, not a question, but Tharkûn suffused it with enough cynicism that she seemed almost offended, and she straightened as indignantly as she spoke. “Of course not— why would he owe me anything?!”

Neutrally, the wizard spread his hands. “Some would want a reward.”

If anything, she seemed more offended at that; the fire in her response was nearly Dwarvish. “Rewa— what kind of bloody horrible person would put a price on someone’s life?! That’s horrible! That kind of— of greedy, lousy, selfish— How can someone want to be paid for saving a life— That’s sick! That’s for bloody Tall Folk, not Hobbits!”

All Thorin could do was stare at her, blankly uncomprehending. The rest of the clearing was just as silent, and little surprise. The idea of someone just giving their life away at the drop of a hat was foreign enough, but that someone could equate a reward with payment…

A cynical part of his mind pointed out, though, that she had a bit of a point. Honor demanded that undue risk and unearned loyalty be rewarded somehow, but those without honor, even Dwarves, might well see it as a mere opportunity.

The clearing was still silent. Belatedly, she seemed to realize what she’d said. “Oh, no offense.”

Gandalf chuckled. “None taken, my dear. Now,” he turned to Thorin, “why did you take such offense that she would put…” He trailed off thoughtfully. “How did you put it? ‘So little value on the life of a king’?”

A scant few minutes earlier, he would have reacted much as she had; now, with her words still ringing in his ears, he realized that she probably understood his words as little as he had hers. With that in mind, he turned to her and took a moment to gather his thoughts in order to explain rationally and clearly, as he might have to Fíli and Kíli when they were younger. “Any labour should be rewarded: the greater the outcome, the greater the reward. You risked yourself to save me. You’ve earned…” Exhaling lowly, he shook his head. “…more than I can repay until we take back Erebor.”

‘Until’, he realized. He’d spent so long refusing to let doubt dissuade him, but even so, there never passed a day when he didn’t wonder, at some point: would this quest claim his life? His nephews? His cousins?

This girl-child?

He could never, would never be able to live with himself if she lost her life because of him, but after hearing her account, now…

He’d thought he had hope before. He’d been too accustomed to the absence to notice it. But now… now he hoped. Now he had hope that the Quest would succeed.

But while he’d been lost in thought, her expression had morphed to confusion as intense (if not more so) as when Gandalf had questioned her. “But all I did was kill one Orc. It took more work to save myself in the caves.”

He blinked at her. “…Yes, but I’m a king.”

She looked more confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Thorin gaped at her incredulously; distantly, he heard Gandalf clear his throat delicately. “There are some, my dear, who believe that the life of a king is worth more than the life of a layman.”

For an uncomprehending moment, she just stared at the wizard. “They—” As quickly as black powder sparking, outrage flared in her eyes. “That’s horrible! What kind of horrible people would think that!?”

Dori began carefully, “Wel—”

Impatiently, she cut him off. “And why would I want a reward anyway?!” She gestured to Thorin with a whip-crack of a motion, meeting his eyes defiantly. “You’re alive: I got what I was after!”

Silence reigned again as she fell back against Dwalin with a petulant _thump_ ; after a moment, Thorin broke it slowly. “…You would risk your life without the slightest expectation of recompense?”

She blinked at him for a handful of moments, apparently genuinely confused by his confusion. “Well… yes. Of course.”

‘Of course’, as though it was nothing, as though one sane Dwarf in a hundred would do the same, as though any Man or Elf would do so at all. Somewhat awed, he shook his head distantly. “You are not a Dwarf.”

With a soft snort, she rolled her eyes lightly, but there was humor in her expression, not brattishness. “Now you sound like Balin; he says that practically every time I talk to him.”

Restraining a stunned laugh, Thorin met Balin’s eyes past his brother; the scholar shrugged lightly and gestured to her as if to say ‘could you expect otherwise’. All Thorin could say in response was: “…I can see why.”

She subsided, watching him, and he watched her, as well. When she’d first maneuvered her way into his Company, he’d thought her nothing more than a liability, a burden, a nuisance, and a defenseless child. In some ways he’d been proven right; bandages still covered most of her visible skin, and her throat, though no longer swollen, was still visibly bruised, if barely. But he was only alive because of her. His Company was only alive, or at least alive and well, because of her. She’d more than proved she could carry her own weight, given the chance, and she was surprisingly un-intrusive. And while she was undoubtably a child, she was no more so than his nephew and niece, and she was as capable as either of them.

He was glad she’d joined the Company.

A thought occurred to him, and he looked to Tharkûn. “Now, wizard, while we’re speaking of such things, perhaps you can explain why my Company obeys Miss Baggins witho—“

“Belda.” Thorin stopped mid word and stared at the girl. She wasn’t looking at him, in fact she had her eyes peacefully closed, and she was tugging Dwalin’s arms around her again, but she didn’t seem aware that everyone in the clearing, including her father, was just as dumbfounded as Thorin. To give her peers permission to use her name was one thing, her compatriots another, but the man who’d treated her abominably just a few hours before…

Thorin had to clear his throat before speaking, and even then his voice was a bit thick; he wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t stop to wonder. “…Belda, without a thought.”

There was quiet for a moment; the wizard seemed to be thinking over the question. motion caught Thorin’s eye as the gi— as Belda opened her eyes with a frown and sat up straight again. “Wait… what?”

Kíli spoke quietly, something odd in his tone. “You don’t remember?” Thorin frowned at him as the Burg— as Belda did; Thorin couldn’t place the oddity in his voice, but his expression was just as strange, something soft in it that Thorin didn’t recognize.

Clearing his throat was enough to get both of the youngest members of his Company to look toward him again, and Thorin addressed Belda directly. “You ordered the Company to sheathe their weapons just before we fell into the Goblin Caves, then to run at the clearing. Both times, I was the only one who seemed able to resist the compulsion, or even aware of it.”

More than a few of the Company looked gobsmacked, and Thorin guessed that they hadn’t noticed anything strange, but his attention was on the Hobbit. All the confusion had fled from Belda’s expression, leaving pure, numb shock in its place. “…What.”

Gently, Dwalin nudged her. “It’s true, kit. I didn’t notice at the time, but he’s right.”

She’d twisted around to look up at him, and now seemed to unwind, turning back around not as if by design, but as though she couldn’t muster the concentration to stay coiled; she shook her head loosely, eyes distant as they turned toward the wizard. “That… that’s not p… possib…”

Her voice gave out, though she continued to mouth words for a moment or two; when he spoke, Gandalf’s voice was gentler than Thorin expected. “Pack is pack, my dear.” Thorin’s mind stopped. ‘Pack’? “It’s as possible as a pack of Dwarves.”

‘Pack’, no, that— Thorin had caught himself, running out of the clearing, beginning to think of the Company as a pack, though he hadn’t known why. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

She still looked to be in shock, and Tharkûn moved to kneel beside her and Dwalin, putting a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. She met his gaze, eyes wide; he spoke quietly, but Thorin heard him anyway. “It’s a rare gift, kit, and a great responsibility. Use it wisely.”

With a look as though he’d handed her a crown rather than whatever he’d given her, she nodded. “I will.”

Nodding soberly, the wizard released her and returned to his seat; she lowered her head, still evidently dumbfounded. Neither seemed to notice that the entire clearing was completely baffled.

“What the uslukh are you talking about, wizard?” Dwalin tightened his arms around Belda as he spoke, glancing at her as though he were afraid she’d vanish if he looked away too long; the motion seemed familiar somehow, but Thorin couldn’t place it.

“I think that’s for Belda to tell you.” Tharkûn looked at her pointedly, and most of the Company followed suit. For a few moments, she didn’t even seem aware that she was the center of attention.

Slowly, dazedly, she met Gandalf’s eyes. “…What?” Dimly, she looked at Thorin and Kíli, and then seemed to realize. “Gandalf, I can barely put two words together; please, jus— tell them.”

Her head lowered again as she made her request, and she tugged Dwalin’s arms more securely around her. Gandalf frowned dubiously. “If you’re sure.” He clearly wanted her to change her mind, but Thorin wasn’t sure she was even hearing them anymore.

Whatever she’d done, whatever Tharkûn had confirmed for her, whatever he was trying to avoid telling them, it was evidently life-altering for Hobbits, or at least utterly unexpected, to stun her so thoroughly. Granted, she was probably still weary from her injuries, but even so…

“Well, wizard?” Gandalf glared at him irritably, but Thorin returned the look evenly.

This concerned his Company, and it greatly affected a member of his Company. He needed to know. And if he were to be told, he couldn’t deny Dwalin the knowledge either, and since it did affect the entire Company, he couldn’t keep it from them, either.

With a slight huff, the wizard began. “Hobbits have… a provision, shall we say. Put into place by the Maker of us all. Hobbits tend to be led by their instincts far more than the other Races, which for some Hobbits means that their first reaction to anything unexpected is to flee. In some cases, this can be what saves them, but in others, it can kill them as surely as an Orc. So, when Hobbits were made, they were granted a way to ensure that cooler heads prevailed in a crisis.” He stilled, watching her. “Very rarely, one Hobbit in a thousand is graced with the authority to protect his or her pack by taking charge in instants when indecision could leave them vulnerable.”

That only brought up more questions, not least of which was “What do you mean ‘pack’?”

Gandalf opened his mouth to answer, but Dwalin did so first. “Like a Company, or a family.”

Thorin gaped.

Gandalf gaped.

Kíli furrowed his brow at the warrior. “How do you know?”

Dwalin shrugged as much as he could without jostling Belda. “She told me in Rivendell. The way she described it…” He trailed off and seemed to be choosing his words more carefully than he usually did. “As she described it, packs are the end-all, be-all of Hobbit society. Nothing matters more than the pack, and I mean that literally, Thorin.” A tinge of warning steel entered his tone, and he held Thorin’s eyes fiercely. “Nothing. Not safety, not comfort, not even personal wellbeing. Hobbits are expected to throw themselves into fire if the pack needs it, and they do so willingly.”

He wanted to argue against it, wanted to deny it, but it fit. An entire race of Beldas. How had they not gone extinct?Thorin’s mouth was dry, the single word he managed no more than a croak.“That…”

Smoothly, Gandalf finished his sentence. “…is a remarkably concise definition.” His eyes found Belda; his tone turned approving. “You explained it well, kit.”

She looked up at the last word, eyes largely still distant, but with a vivid blush that suggested she’d at least heard a few sentences.

She ducked her head again; Ori asked incredulously, “That was concise?”

The wizard just chuckled. “My dear Ori, I’ve spent centuries studying Hobbits and their customs, and even I don’t fully understand packs.” Abruptly, he sobered and gave Thorin a look as intense as Dwalin’s had been, though the wizard was only solemn. “But if I have learned anything, it is that there is no greater honor than to be counted among a Hobbit’s pack.”

Thorin couldn’t speak. He felt as though he were being flooded with information, nearly all of it earth-shaking. What Gandalf was describing (and Dwalin, to a lesser extent), was that she’d essentially sworn fealty to him— or adopted his entire Company, depending on how he thought of it. Or possibly put him and his Company under her protection.

He was starting to see why Gandalf’s centuries weren’t enough to understand.

The rest of the Company was just as gobsmacked. Or so he thought.

“It’s not as though she had a pack in the Shire, though, is it?” The muttered comment was more callous than he’d expected from one of his oldest friends, but Belda just snorted.

“I’m not going to bind myself to just anyone, Balin; if you’d’ve all been as bad as the Sackville-Bagginses, I wouldn’t have given you anything but common courtesy.”

Ori leaned toward her with a frown. “What do you mean, ‘bind’?”

With a startled squeak, she ducked her head again, a vivid blush spreading over her cheeks from ear to ear; Gandalf took it upon himself to answer, but Kíli caught Thorin’s eye as he looked to the wizard. Why was his sister-son blushing? “Pack, Ori, is a complicated concept. It’s a combination of shield-brothers, community, hunting party, family, and coalition. In times of hardship or danger, the survival of the pack as a whole is considered to be more important than even blood-kin, unless, of course, said kin is within the same pack, which is possible, if unlikely.”

Thankfully cutting off his somewhat-rambling explanation, the wizard looked around the Company grimly. “Let me be clear: Belda has a tremendous responsibility toward all of you, but that burden must be reciprocated. She will gladly sacrifice herself for any or all of you. Pay her back in kind.”

Still blushing, Belda’s head snapped up to glare at him. “Gandalf!”

Despite himself, Thorin had to bite back a laugh; her half-hiss, half-whining tone was reminiscent of any number of occasions before Erebor fell, when Dís, Frerin, and/or himself had been trying to get out of something, or protesting something one of their parents were saying about them. Surprisingly, it was Nori who chided her lightly. “Oi, who was it ran into certain death for Thorin?”

The Burglar gaped at the thief for a long moment, before her blush darkened and she again fell petulantly back against Dwalin’s chest. “Any of you would’ve done the same.”

She put a slight emphasis on ‘you’ that Thorin didn’t understand, but Nori’s slight wince seemed to suggest that he did. Dwalin spoke before Thorin could ask for clarification. “Exactly.”

She frowned, but she only looked up at Dwalin, rather than scoffing or elbowing him as he’d seen her do before.

Bofur cleared his throat. “This is all very interesting, but maybe we should resume this someplace a little safer?”

Thorin blinked at him for a moment, then realized that it was edging into mid-afternoon already. Scowling, he pushed to his feet and barked for the Company to prepare to head out; they’d already packed up camp while Belda was asleep, but it would still take a minute or two to gather their things. Belda likewise began to stand, only to hiss and fall back again; Dwalin immediately began to say something to her too quietly for Thorin to hear, to which she responded with a scowl and an equally-quiet hiss, and the two of them argued for several seconds.

Shaking his head at the similarity between them (and wondering how he never saw it before), Thorin moved to stand in front of them; she glanced at him, but didn’t stop talking. With a faint scowl, Dwalin poked her on the leg and gestured to Thorin; scowling to match her father, she fell silent and met Thorin’s eyes.

“Dwalin will be carrying you as we travel.” Predictably, she opened her mouth with an affronted scowl, presumably to protest Thorin’s decision, but he cut her off. “According to Óin, he’d have you bedridden for a week if it was possible. The faster you heal, the better for the Company as a whole.”

As he’d hoped, the phrasing pulled her up short, and her ire slowly faded. As it did, she visibly searched for a way to keep arguing, but finally, her shoulders slumped and she glared tiredly up at him. “Today. Tomorrow, I’m walking.”

At that, Thorin just met Dwalin’s eyes for a moment and walked away with a noncommittal grunt. He had no objection to her walking for a little while. But he seriously doubted her injuries would allow her to walk for long, and then Dwalin would carry her again.

But now, he finally had to admit what he’d been refusing to since Rivendell: she made him think of Dís. Not as she was now, but when she’d been a child, before Azanulbizar. He chuckled softly. If Belda grew up to be half the woman his sister was, she’d be fearsome, indeed.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda tilted her head slightly to lean it against Dwalin’s. They’d been walking for half an hour or so, and she had to admit, albeit grudgingly, that Thorin had probably been right to insist she be carried. She was already falling asleep, despite sleeping for twice as long as usual earlier, and her nap, and the fact that she hadn’t done anything more strenuous than hold onto Dwalin.

But even if he hadn’t been right, she wasn’t sure she would’ve complained. Being carried on Dwalin’s back as she was, apart from Rivendell, was something she only vaguely remembered from when she was young enough not to be able to open doors by herself. By all rights, it should’ve been mortifying, but instead it was comforting. Dwalin couldn’t carry his axes on his back or in his hands, since he was holding her knees in place at his sides, but he’d strapped her little sword and one of Fíli’s to his belt, easily drawn in case of emergency. They weren’t his usual weapons, but he was easily as proficient with them as Fíli was, or more so.

She should’ve felt uneasy, since he didn’t have Grasper and Keeper, but instead she felt as safe as if they were in Rivendell again. Now, she dimly remembered her waking dream just a few hours before, and she fell back into it easily, with one difference.

There was no trace of her father. Or, at least, of Bungo. For some reason, her heart was convinced that her father with there with her, despite the fact that it was only her and Dwalin. She could hear wolves howling, distantly, but they seemed to be miles away, and she knew Dwalin would keep her safe.

She smiled, and slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thorin is a petty, petty dude. Who definitely isn't pouting about his bff not spending as much time with him as usual. Definitely not.  
> Notes: Thorin is a cranky man-child, and if he ever called Belda a Sharbrugn out loud, Dwalin (and Kíli, Ori, Nori, and possibly Bifur and Bofur) would deck him. (It only means 'bald chin', but in Dwarven culture? *shudders* That's a horrible insult.)  
> Random note: Apparently (and somehow I never noticed this before today) another term for Hobbits is 'khilorusgal', which literally translates as 'Dwarf who has a tendency to ask too many questions', but can be used for Hobbits, too. I was doing some last-minute editing a few minutes ago, and I seriously considered having Thorin call Belda a khilorusgal, but Belda is too quiet for that nickname. Eh. I'll keep it in mind for another fic.  
> À demain!


	20. Fíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tags will soon be updated to no-longer-unrequited-love.

Dwalin’s scowl made Fíli smile, despite herself. Belda had insisted on walking for at least some of the morning, and the argument had nearly delayed the Company before Dwalin finally agreed. Then, of course, he’d threatened quite creative retribution on Fíli and Kíli if either of them let her be injured, but Fíli didn’t mind that.

Belda did, but then, Fíli had a feeling that it was the idea of them getting hurt that she truly minded.

Fíli had fallen slightly behind the other two as they walked, and she watched them as they talked; she was too far behind to hear them, quiet as they were being, but she didn’t really need to. She could see how they were together, how Belda’s hand brushed against Kíli’s every so often, how Kíli grinned at her in such a way that it seemed as though the sun itself should have been shining through his eyes. How easily Belda took his arm when he offered it, when Fíli was fairly sure the Burglar would’ve refused anyone else and insisted that she wasn’t limping. How Kíli looked at her as though she were the only thing that mattered in the world.

Fíli couldn’t believe that Thorin didn’t see it. They looked… they looked like Fíli remembered her mother and father had. They absolutely looked like Glóin and Lemli did.

Following that train of thought, Fíli shuddered; if Kíli ended up talking about Belda as much as Glóin did about Lemli and Gimli, she might have to stab him.

But only maybe.

Ori was walking ahead of the youngest two, and just far enough to the side that Fíli could look at him without doing so obviously. As was becoming normal after some sort of peril or other, his brothers flanked him: Dori was fussing over him, asking him questions only to answer them himself before Ori had the chance to; Nori didn’t say a word, but he touched Ori’s arm every so often as though he needed to reassure himself that he was safe. Oddly enough, Nori glanced back nearly as often as he reached out to Ori, looking at Belda with something that might have been concern; Fíli had always been terrible at reading him.

But Ori only took his brothers’ concern in stride, occasionally sighing at something Dori said, but nothing more; he glanced at Belda now and then, though. He didn’t do so as often as his older brother, but it still made Fíli’s heart plummet. She thought it was about as likely that Belda would return Ori’s feelings as it was that Thorin would abdicate to become Thranduil’s Court Jester, but that wouldn’t change how he felt. If Ori was inclined to try and court Belda, Fíli would warn him away for Kíli’s sake. If Ori chose to pursue someone else, she wouldn’t stop him. It wasn’t as though she’d have any right to, anyway.

She’d learned more about Ori over the course of the journey than she’d ever hoped to, enough that she didn’t think there was much about him she didn’t know. Certainly nothing big enough to stop her from recognizing him as her One. So he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.

They couldn’t be anything. Companions, of course, friends, perhaps, but nothing more.

She was a Princess of Erebor, the Heir to the throne. The only hope she could ever have of marrying—Mahal, even courting a low-born scribe—was if he was her One. Then nothing and no one could or would stand in the way, but as it was, as he wasn’t, it was impossible.

She was a fool to hope.

She couldn’t quite bring herself to stop.

The only thing she really knew was that if she let herself get close to him, she wouldn’t be able to keep from falling completely. So she kept her distance. Of course, that meant that she was walking near Óin and Bombur; the cook was the quiet sort, but Óin…

Looking over her shoulder at them as the physician let out a particularly loud exclamation, she had to hold back a laugh at the long-suffering look on Bombur’s face.

So, of course, that was when they were attacked.

She didn’t see the Orcs charge, only the glare of a blade aimed at her neck once she turned forward; she ducked automatically as the shouts and clangs of battle erupted around her. Her sword was in her hand in a flash, and the Orc who’d attacked her was dead just as quickly. A quick glance around her was all she had time for before another Orc charged, but she had time to see that Kíli and Dwalin were both flanking Belda as the three of them fought, and that Thorin was holding his own near the ‘Ri’s. After she dispatched her combatant, she looked around again, and realized it must have only been a scouting party; there were half a dozen other Orcs in the fight, and a warg for each of them, dead or otherwise.

Some frisson of an instinct pulled her eyes back to Óin and Bombur: the latter was holding off two Orcs at once, the former apparently unaware that a warg was charging up behind him— Fíli wrenched the healer out of the way just in time to sink her blade into the beast’s heart as it ran past; even in its death-throes, it had the momentum to pull her hilt out of her hand and spin her around to see another warg leap toward her—

Time slowed for an instant; the warg’s feet left the ground, its mouth open as it snarled; a scream rent the air, and she knew it was Ori; knowing what was to come for her, she could only pray, _‘Mahal, please, if I have to die, save him’_. And then there was no time for prayer, and no room in her mind for anything but sheer terror.

Not even the realization that she’d heard a war-cry, not a scream.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the warg’s trajectory changed— the beast sailed sideways, over Óin where he still laid on the ground, and the sickening _crunch_ of bone shattering hung in the air for a long moment as she stared at Ori. Her mind didn’t seem to be working as it should; the last few seconds repeated in her mind: his cry as the warg leapt, his fist impacting the warg’s skull and breaking through it completely, the battle-rage in his expression as he watched the warg land, the fact that he stayed where he was in front of her even while the battle still raged around them.

Her mind was moving so oddly, in fact, that the battle seemed to fade away as she stared at him. She’d known how passionate he could be, but— Her eyes fell to his hand, expecting to see that it was as pulverized as the warg, but even with blood coating it, she could tell that none of it was his, but that was impossible for anyone who wasn’t—

Dori. Dori was impossibly strong, always had been, but it was only Dori, it— it…

Ori turned to her, naked worry in his eyes as he looked her up and down, asking in words she only half-heard if she was all right, if she was injured, did she need Óin…

She only stared at him, and her breath caught as she realized: he was her One.

Her breath left her in a shocked gasp of a laugh, and Ori moved closer, looking even more concerned, and he had to be worried if he was going to bend propriety and get that close, close enough to touch, close enough, in fact…

No sooner had the thought occurred to her than she acted on it; yanking on his sweater, she slammed her lips over his possessively, but she wasn’t quite brave enough to run her hands through his hair. Not yet.

He was stone under her lips, and she pulled back after a moment or two, worried that she’d made a mistake. But the shock in his eyes quickly faded into awe, which faded into a soft tenderness that called a smile to her lips to match his. Gently, he slid his unstained hand over the junction of her jaw and pulled her in for another kiss; she ran one hand over his chest before sinking it into his hair; her other hand, she ran down to his free hand, still a bit sticky, but she didn’t care. Her eyes were closed at that point, as were his, but she still wove her fingers through his.

His kiss was gentler than hers, but even so, it made her knees weak as he deepened it; she matched his motions clumsily, and all she could think was to wonder where he’d learned to kiss so expertly. An instant after she thought that, though, he tilted his head a bit too far to the side and their noses bumped together; he tried to correct it, but only succeeded in bumping his forehead against hers. They broke apart, he blushing, she laughing, but she just smiled at him for a moment before pulling him back to her for another kiss. The hand at her jaw moved down to her waist, squeezing gently; heat spread from the spot and filled her veins, her blood roaring in her ears.

She wasn’t really sure what she might have done next if she hadn’t been abruptly yanked backward.

It took her a moment to realize that the roaring hadn’t been her pulse, after all, and that it had been Thorin who’d pulled her back. He released her suddenly enough that she would have fallen if Kíli hadn’t caught her; Thorin charged forward to roar at Dori, who was still holding the back of Ori’s sweater, and Ori met her eyes, looking as dazed as she felt. Dori roared something back at Thorin, but she couldn’t really focus on anything but her (looking rather thoroughly kissed) One. His eyes flicked down to her lips for a moment before he grinned crookedly at her, more proudly than she might have expected if she didn’t feel just as satisfied by his dishevelment.

Slowly, she realized that the entire Company was watching and whispering among themselves; she couldn’t bring herself to care in the slightest about the attention, but she did wonder what Ori thought of it. The others were varied: Kíli still looked dumbfounded, but happy; Belda looked as though she’d burst from excitement, and gave Fíli a beaming grin and two thumbs up when their eyes met; Dwalin, beside his daughter, seemed surprised, but satisfied; Nori was unreadable, as usual; most of the Company seemed pleased; and Thorin and Dori, of course, were still shouting at each other.

“…oody brother must have seduced h—”

“—y brother would never do such a thing— your niece must have taken advanta—“

“—u dare insult the Line of Durin—”

“I wouldn’t say it’s an insult if it’s true, Uncle.” Both elders turned to her as though they’d forgotten she was there at all; Ori snickered; she smiled. “I kissed him, not the other way around,” Dori started to say something; Fíli raised her voice over his, “AND I BELIEVE it’s a Dam’s prerogative to take advantage of her One.”

At that, the entire Company fell utterly silent, all of them staring at her; in the background, movement caught her eye as Belda’s brow furrowed and she looked to Dwalin. Fíli kept her eyes on her Uncle’s, though. After the initial shock, everyone looked at Ori, but he just grinned blindingly.

With a growl, Thorin grabbed her shoulder and pushed her to the front of the line. “Everyone, move out. We’ll deal with this later.”

* * *

 

Belda

 

“Don’t—” Óin shushed her without even looking; Belda was grudgingly impressed with his instincts.

A sharp sting stabbed up from her leg, and she hissed; Dwalin steadied her as she tried to flinch away from the healer. “Almost done, lass.”

Movement at the head of the procession caught her eye as Thorin and Fíli argued over something; Kíli caught her eye and gave her an apologetic half-smile, but didn’t move away from his family. Belda just shook her head and mustered up the most genuine-looking smile she could; it was evidently convincing enough, because Kíli’s smile eased and he turned back to contribute something to the discussion. But even as he argued, Thorin glanced toward the way they’d been heading every few seconds, and at Belda nearly as often. Guilt twisted her stomach into knots; Dwalin squeezed her shoulders gently. “Don’t squirm, kit. It’ll only take longer.”

She sighed, but subsided. She knew she ought to be grateful to Óin for spotting that the cuts on her leg had reopened, but all she could focus on was that she was slowing down the pack. If it had been any of the wounds she’d gained in a fight, she might not have minded so much, but it was the wounds she gave herself, the ones she had because she’d been sloppy. It was her own fault that the pack was lingering in dangerous territory, her fault that they were at risk, her fault—

“Peace, kit. We’re not Hobbits.” Dwalin laid his head on hers for a moment, then kissed her temple; she closed her eyes and clung to his words as much as his wrist. She wasn’t sure whether he could actually read her that well or if he’d simply come to the conclusion that her thoughts always ran along that line when she was upset. If it was the former, her mother would be appalled; foxes didn’t show weakness, didn’t get tied down by packs, didn’t get attached—

Clenching her jaw, she shoved her mother’s voice away. She’d decided in the caves that she wouldn’t be her mother, had decided it again when she saved Thorin, but it seemed she’d have to make the decision again, and probably again, and again, and again. The thought seemed impossibly daunting at the moment, and she leaned more heavily against Dwalin’s side, breath hitching.

Óin tied off the new bandages a moment later and moved away. They’d already discussed what to do, so Dwalin didn’t hesitate to crouch in front of her and she didn’t bother to argue before she gingerly climbed onto his back. Her eyes watered as he hitched her up, but she bit her cheek against the pain and just held on more tightly.

Finally, the Company moved out; Fíli was still at the front with Thorin and Kíli, all of them still arguing; Ori was at the rear of the group with his siblings; Dwalin, and therefore Belda, were almost exactly in the middle of the group.

But she couldn’t enjoy her vantage point. Pain radiated from her leg, more intense than it had been since before the Eagles came; Óin had come to the conclusion that the cut would need to be stitched, but they’d lost the sewing kit along with all the other supplies, so bandaging would have to be enough for the time being. But it hurt. After everything, she should’ve been able to brush off the pain, but she couldn’t.

“Wha… what happened with Fíli and Ori, earlier?”

Dwalin’s hands tightened on her legs for a moment. “Are you sure you don’t want to slee—”

“I can’t. I just—” A dip in the ground jolted her; she bit back a whimper. “D— Just— Something. Just— Fíli said something about ‘Ones’?”

Dwalin turned his head just enough for her to see his confused expression. “Hobbits don’t have Ones?”

“The number, yes, but I’ve no idea what else it could mean.” A shocked breath left him, his eyes wide, and he turned thoughtfully forward again. It was nearly a minute before he started, slowly and quietly.

“This isn’t for others to know. I know Hobbits have secrets, and I know you’ve been keeping them from all of us.” She winced; he tilted his head just enough to rest it against hers for a moment. “So please, treat our secrets with the same respect.” The flash of guilt faded slowly, but it was clear enough that he wasn’t angry or hurt that she’d lied; doing her best to smother a flicker of hope that he’d be as forgiving if he knew the truth, she nodded.

He nodded as well, and began. “Dwarves were made by Aulë, our maker, our Mahal. He wanted to be like his Father, wanted children of his own to guide and teach, to love and to show the beauty of Eru’s lands, so when he learned of Eru’s plan to create Men and Elves, he made us. But he hadn’t had permission to, and Eru berated him for his presumption. Remorse filled Mahal, and he readied himself to destroy his beloved creations.

“But they pleaded with him to spare them. It should’ve been impossible; Mahal could shape them, but only Eru had the power to fill them with His Fire of Life. And so Eru had. Mahal had acted shamefully, but Eru saw fit to forgive him, and to grant Mahal’s children the same privilege of life after life as His natural children bore. In those days, Arda was filled with monsters and evil the likes of which have never since been seen. To ensure his children’s survival, Mahal had made them strong, hardy, built to overcome any foe, any hardship. He’d created them to be warriors, thinking that they would need that strength to survive such a harsh world. But Eru had a plan beyond Mahal’s understanding.

“Eru laid the Dwarves to rest, and bade them sleep until after He woke his Firstborn. When they woke, it was to see a world far kinder than Mahal had expected. Mahal had laid them separate from one another: two slept in Ered Luin with their wives; two slept in the Iron Hills with their wives; two more and their wives slept in mountains further to the east, the names lost to the Ages; last and first and eldest was Durin, and he lay alone in the mountain of Gundabad.

“Who Durin’s wife was, where she came from, all that has been lost, but we know that he found her some years after the other Lines, the Broadbeams and Firebeards, the Ironfists and Stiffbeards, the Blacklocks and Stonefoots, had begun to grow. Mahal had seen fit to challenge his eldest child, challenge him to grow and learn and become more than his fellows, and in that, he was successful.”

Belda frowned. Something about the story, the patterns, almost seemed familiar.

“Durin traveled all through the Misty Mountains, and he settled in Moria, in Khazad-Dûm. There, he created a city worthy of the eldest of the Dwarves, and he used his time alone to hone his skills beyond any of the other Lines. But as the years passed, he felt his solitude more and more keenly. He spent more and more of his time searching for his One, his equal.”

This was starting to be very familiar.

“While he searched, he visited his fellows where they’d been laid. Their Lines prospered, but though they loved their Crafts, they didn’t have his expertise. Four of the Lines determined to outdo him on their own, but two, the founders of the Broadbeams and the founders of the Firebeards, saw that he was willing to teach. Their firstborns, both sons, were grown, and they asked Durin to teach them his arts, and he accepted, glad that even if he never found his One, his legacy would remain. He brought them back to Khazad-Dûm, ready to begin their apprenticeships, but they were surprised to find Mahal’s wife, the Queen of the Earth waiting for them.”

Belda stiffened; her leg screamed, but her mind’s roaring drowned it out.

“She explained that she’d seen his desolation, and she hadn’t wished him to remain alone forever. He pointed out that her husband had been the one to isolate him in the first, but she only laughed and told him that she thought Mahal had been too harsh on him. She also told him that she’d been the one to approach Mahal, not the other way around, so Mahal ought to have expected his favorite child to follow in his example in that as well as in so many other ways. As they spoke, motion caught his eye, something moving in the shadows, in his mountain, his home. He looked, and he saw three figures in the gloom, three women.”

Numbly, Belda thought, _‘three Hobbits. One predator, one fighting-prey, one fleeing-prey, a rabbit._ ’

“The Queen of the Earth explained that she’d sought out women who were willing to claim his friendship, if not his heart, and stepped aside. The women stood in a line, still in the shadow, so he could only see the first of them. She stood in front of her sisters,”

 _‘Not sisters, just charges, she was the rándýr-verndari of the pack_.’

“And she challenged him. In her, he saw someone he could trust, someone he could respect, but not someone he could truly love. She seemed much the same, and once he’d assured her that he meant neither her nor her sisters any harm, she claimed the attention of the younger apprentice, the more mischievous of the two.”

Belda nearly lost her grip. _’Oh. That explains some things_.’

“The next woman was just as protective of the third, but less open in her wariness. Try as he did, he couldn’t gain her trust, and his other apprentice stepped forward. The boy was less implacable than Durin, more of a silver-tongue, and eventually the woman seemed convinced of their intentions. But she still didn’t move.”

‘ _‘The rabbit-Hobbit could tell that the bolder woman only remained where she was out of reluctance to abandon her charge, and quietly urged her to go with the one who called her heart.’_ ’

“The third woman said something too quietly for Durin to hear, and finally, the middle woman moved away from the last, and went off with the apprentice. And Durin was left with the third of them, and he was struck with the full force of her. She was as strong as he, but more wise, as brave, but less reckless, and she loved his mountain as dearly as he did, but she saw how it could be improved. On that day, the last moon of Autumn and the first sun of Winter joined together, and Durin ever after remembered it as the day on which the shape of his world was forever altered.

“The seven women, as there were three others who’d been too timid to come forward right away and the Queen of the Earth stayed to watch over the proceedings, wintered in the mountain, and the three Dwarves grew to dearly love the three they’d met that first day. All three of them, but especially Durin, crafted gift after gift for them, told them of their love in every fashion they could think of, but spring came without the women reciprocating.”

_‘Oh, dear Eru. ‘But the Stone-Born made no such indications to them. … For the Hobbits had made a mistake. They’d assumed that the Stone-Born knew of their gifts.’ It was a miscommunication on_ _both_ _ends?!’_

“The first day of spring, the women all ran out of the mountain as though they’d starved for air inside, and the men hung back, sure that their loves would leave them, that it was too late. But seeing their glee, the missing piece of the puzzle fell into place, and they recognized their Ones.”

Putting aside the fact that the entire world had just turned upside-down, Belda poked Dwalin. “I still haven’t heard an explanation for that.”

He _humphed_ , but she could see the edge of a smile on his cheek. “I’m trying to tell you, kit. Mahal made the six Fathers and their wives for each other. They weren’t complete by themselves. He made Durin to be alone, but Eru had other plans.”

Dwarven sensibilities took a bit of puzzling out, and Belda thought aloud to be sure she wasn’t misunderstanding him. “So… ‘Ones’ are like your missing halves? Dwarves aren’t complete without them?”

Dwalin grunted noncommittally. “Not all Dwarves have Ones. In Durin’s day, we all did, but times have changed. Now, around half of us do, I’d say, but not everyone finds their One, or is their One’s One in return, or cares to look for them.”

At that, she actually lost her grip; Dwalin let out a string of shocked curses as he hauled her back up, but she barely heard him. “Fætur Eldfreyja og Tennur Tauron! What do you mean, you don’t care?!?”

He huffed, but his scent was worried. “Thought you said you didn’t know what Ones were, kit. And we aren’t Hobbits. Not every Dwarf wants to marry, and not every Dwarf has the chance; we’ve twice as many men as women, and a fair number of women wouldn’t leave their forges to eat or sleep if it wasn’t necessary, let alone split their attention for a husband.”

She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. In fact, she was getting a headache just trying to understand. After a few moments, Dwalin’s scent changed, fear creeping in, and she realized he was saying something. “Sorry, I… wh… what were you saying?”

“Are you all right, kit? Do you need to stop?”

The words didn’t connect for a moment, but she shook her head when they did. “No, that’s… I’m fine. I just—” Words failed her, and after several moments of trying and failing to find a way to say it, she just shook her head. “You are not Hobbits.”

Several minutes passed in silence. Belda’s mind spun enough to leave her dizzy, and when Dwalin broke her out of her brooding with a gentle squeeze to her good leg, she found she couldn’t remember any of her thoughts, only a distressed, distressing blur. “Tell me what’s wrong, kit.”

Despite the wording, his tone was pleading, not commanding; it was how her Da would’ve spoken, had spoken, in such a situation, and she answered as quickly as she was able, though it took her a moment to find the right words. “Hobbits don’t have Ones, we have Mates.”

“Mates?” She could almost hear the incredulity on his face.

Realizing she may have given away a bit too much (though, strangely, she couldn’t bring herself to care like she should’ve, not when it was her D— when it was Dwalin), she huffed. “Pairs, couples, twosomes, ‘other halves’, whatever you want to call them. We all have a Mate, somewhere, and nearly all of us find them before our coming of age. Pack is—” Her heart lodged in her throat, the conversation between the two of them and Thorin still fresh enough that she couldn’t stop the flood of emotions from rushing back: joyful disbelief that Thorin did want her in his pack; the lingering, nauseating fear of what would happen when they found out the truth; an overwhelming sense of possessiveness, paired with a weight greater than any she’d known before, to know of her responsibility toward them.

After a long moment, she took a shaky breath and resumed. “The pack comes first, always, but not all Hobbits are suited to large packs. My mother—” Her throat closed again, but this time it was against bile as she remembered Nori’s words and the memories they’d brought back. Dwalin glanced at her, concerned, but she just swallowed hard and forced her emotion to the back of her mind for the time being. (Bile nearly crept up her throat again as she realized she was using her mother’s lessons to help her, but she rallied.)

“My mother’s family typically only have small packs, even when they could have larger. My mother was no exception. But our packs… Nowadays, now that packs are a luxury, instead of a necessity, like attracts like. If both of them had been inclined, my Da would’ve been in a pack with some of his cousins, my mother would’ve been in a pack with her siblings, but their packs would’ve been completely separate. But in the Wandering Days, when packs were for survival, pack always, always began with Mates. If both Mates wanted to join a larger pack, they did, and if their children wanted to join a separate pack from their parents, they did, but Mates were pack. It didn’t, doesn’t matter who else was pack, they were pack.”

Her hold on her emotions faltered, and sorrow crept up from her heart, up her throat and behind her eyes. Stubbornly, she blinked away the burning, and kept her voice steady. “My mother was too solitary to join a pack, but she and Da were pack. They were always pack. She used to say that f—” She bit her tongue sharply against the admission, shocked by how easily it came to her lips. “That Tooks weren’t made to love more than once.”

And she’d always taken it as a given, always blindly accepted it. How blind had she truly been?

Sniffling, she leaned her head against Dwalin’s; in a voice almost too low for even her to hear, she murmured, “She used to say that Da was all the pack she needed, and Da would add that he didn’t need a pack bigger than mother and I, either.”

“Kit…” Even if she hadn’t been able to spot the pity and the dread in his scent, it would’ve been easy enough for her to hear it.

“Not—” Her voice cracked, and she took a moment to swallow back the heartache before she tried again. “Not now, Dwalin. Please.”

She could tell from his scent that he wasn’t satisfied, but he didn’t press. It took her long minutes to regain her composure; she felt as though she’d been carrying a jigsaw in her pocket all her life, but only now saw that the pieces fit together. It was too much for a roadside discussion, and she needed to sort through her own feelings first, in any case. All in all, returning to the topic at hand seemed the best option.

“But we all have Mates. It’s rare that we don’t, and the thought of not wanting to find yours—” She gaped soundlessly for several seconds.

“Like thinking a king’s life is worth more than any other’s?” His voice was gentle, but there was a chuckle in it, and it made it a bit easier for her to push aside her turmoil for a few minutes.

“Worse! It’s—” Deflating slightly, she sighed and shook her head. “Hobbits weren’t made to be alone. We need family like we need food and sunlight.” (The stories her Da had taught her still in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but silently finish, _and rain and soil, and a safe haven_.) “To be— to not even  care if you find them, to not care about family or pack or love—“ Her breath caught in a half-sob. “How can anyone be so heartless?”

Softly, Dwalin shushed her, and she turned her head to hide her face in his hair. Really, she didn’t know why she felt so strongly about it, but then again, that was a lie.

She just didn’t want to face it.

Dwalin cursed quietly, then squeezed her good leg again; it was meant to be a comfort, she knew, but she couldn’t stop crying. After another few seconds, a low rumbling rumbled through her, and she realized he was humming. He kept his voice low, but she could hear it easily enough. The [melody](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/oyfn-pripetshik/1259515074?i=1259515888) was gently mournful, not unlike the songs Hobbit had of the Wandering Days, but there was something about the style of it that reminded her of the lullabies her Da had sung to her when she was a fauntling. The thought kept her tears spilling into his hair when she’d almost thought she’d stop, but he only finished the song and began another, [this](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/chava-ballet-sequence/715937222?i=715937656) one lighter and softer, and far more tender than she thought any words could convey.

In the light of day, when she wasn’t tired in the slightest, she didn’t fall into a dream, wasn’t so tired she couldn’t understand. Dwalin was acting like her father.

Not like her Da, exactly, not like Bungo. Her Da wouldn’t’ve been strong enough to carry her, for one thing, and he might’ve had the courage to stand up to Thorin on her behalf, but she still would’ve been the one protecting him.

With Dwalin, there was no doubt in her, not in her mind, not in her heart, not in her soul, that Dwalin would and could protect her. From Giants, from Thorin, from her nightmares. He would.

Her Da had been a beaver: quiet, industrious, and always, always putting his family, his daughter, first. Always making sure she knew how much he loved her.

Dwalin, if he were a Hobbit, would undoubtably be a bear. Huge, intimidating, gentler than he seemed, and fiercely protective of her. How he saw her, she had no idea, but with how he treated her, how loved she felt, she could only see him as her father.

Part of her heart desperately wanted him to actually be her father. Part of her heart felt as though she’d be replacing her Da if he was, and recoiled from the idea. But another part of her couldn’t help but think that her Da would approve of him.

He’d be afraid at first, of course, and horrified at the sight of all Dwalin’s weapons and scars. He would’ve been angry with how Dwalin had treated her at first, and maybe would’ve even stood up to him about it. But if he’d seen how Dwalin was with her in Rivendell, he would’ve laughed at how out of his depth the warrior was, but he would’ve forgiven him immediately. He would’ve approved of him then, and he probably would’ve thanked him for taking her under his wing when he couldn’t.

He would’ve wanted her to be happy. He’d understood how important pack and family were in a way that his wife never had. He wouldn’t have wanted Belda to be alone. He’d always put her wellbeing first, even given her his food during the Winter, even—

A sob broke through Belda’s mostly-silent tears, and Dwalin repeated the soft song, then moved on to [another](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gold-a-cappella/506880915?i=506881232), and then [another](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/distant-melody/189104724?i=189108455), and during the last, his stride changed slightly, matching the tempo of the song until she thought he might have danced if they hadn’t been walking. The song, though…

Curiosity helping her stem her tears, she tentatively joined him on the second verse; the melody she knew was just slightly different from the one he was using, but even so, the song was one her Da had sung to her since she was in her cradle, that he’d told her was from the Giver herself, taught to the first Hobbits as their firstborn were in their cradles. The original words, if there ever were any, had been long since forgotten, but the melody was one every Baggins knew, though she didn’t know how many other families remembered it.

Dwalin faltered for an instant, but didn’t stop humming. If he was changing his melody to fit hers, she couldn’t tell, but they did fit, not matching, but both complementing the other as though they’d been written together.

Then again, she reflected, if Dwalin’s story was true, if the implications were true, then Durin’s wife would have sung to their children as her parents had to her, and as Yavanna had sung to theirs. After so long, it was only really surprising that the song had survived the Ages as recognizably as it had.

But if it was true…

So many packs during the Wandering Days had forgotten their history in favor of survival. She couldn’t fault them that; sitting around and telling stories was as likely as anything else to draw deadly attention in the wilds. But the larger packs, the ones with multiple rándýr-verndarar, had had the relative security that they could risk it. There hadn’t been many packs so large, and by the time they found the Shire, most Hobbits knew little and cared less for their histories. The Bagginses (and possibly more, but she didn’t know for sure one way or the other) had preserved the teachings, the stories and songs and secrets, but their time in the Tall World had taught them to be guarded, and so her Da hadn’t known what the other families knew of their past, if anything.

He’d been a scholar, her Da. He’d soaked up every history he was ever taught as a fauntling, and when he’d been made head of the family a few years before the Winter, he’d immediately claimed ownership of every book of annals the family had, and he’d shared all of them with her. He’d impressed the importance of not telling a soul of them on her, of course, but even then, she’d understood.

He hadn’t even told her mother until the Fell Winter, until they’d run out of everything else to distract them from the howling.

She doubted she would’ve remembered them well if that had been the last time she’d read the accounts, but after she’d come home one day to find him reading them without her, he’d promised not to leave her out ever again, and to prove it, he’d built a hiding place for them into her room. They’d still been there when Longo and Camellia took Bag-End, and whatever else the two of them had done, they’d never found the books.

And eleven years had left her more than enough time to memorize her histories.

She’d memorized half the library by the time Gandalf came knocking.

One of the things even the Bagginses hadn’t remembered, though, were the names of the first Hobbits. They did, though, remember that the third generation of Hobbits on Arda had included a rabbit-Hobbit. They remembered that she and five of her kin had been taken to a faraway land by the Giver.

They remembered that the rabbit-Hobbit and two others had found their Mates in Stone-Born men.

And apparently, Dwarves remembered that Durin and two of his kin and found their Ones in unnamed but very much not Dwarven women.

They didn’t remember that the women had been shape-changers, though. She almost had to smile at that; evidently, not all of the Hobbit need for secrecy was learnt.

But if Dwalin was telling the truth, and it seemed incredibly likely that he was, since he couldn’t possibly know anything of the Hobbit history his tale slotted into so neatly, then that meant that Hobbits and Dwarves had once been close. Hadn’t just been close, been pack. It meant that they’d once been family. It meant that she wasn’t out of her mind to feel kinship with the Company, to see them as pack, to see Dwalin as another father.

Kíli as…

She still didn’t know what she saw Kíli as. Or at least she wasn’t ready to think of it.

And given Thorin’s reaction to Fíli and Ori, even if she had been ready, it probably would’ve still been wise to wait until he was calmer.

As she thought of the new couple (again, she resisted the urge to applaud them), she realized Dwalin still hadn’t properly answered her question. “So what, exactly, are Ones? And why did it take Fíli and Ori so long to realize that they were each other’s?”

He’d startled, slightly, when she spoke, but gave a noncommittal grunt once she was finished. “They might not be. Ori is definitely Fíli’s— the lass is too intelligent to do something like that, in full view of her uncle, unless she knew that it wouldn’t only be reciprocated, it would be accepted by the Company. Eventually.” Belda snickered; Dwalin’s voice warmed. “To answer the first…”

He was silent for a few moments; Belda realized that the light was beginning to change with the encroaching sunset, though the trees were too thick to actually see the sun through them. “Bear in mind, I’ve no real idea what it feels like. You’d have to ask Glóin or Bombur for that, or Fíli, now. But I’m told it feels like working in a mine…” He trailed off, then spoke again, hesitantly, after a short pause. “Like… like watching… clouds. And they change, but slow enough that you can’t… it’s not obvious. And then all of a sudden, you realize that you can recognize something in it. A picture or… something.”

Stifling a snort, Belda tightened her arms around him affectionately. “You don’t spend much time cloud-watching, do you?”

He did snort, and shook his head. “Never saw the use in it, no.”

Chuckling, she teased, “Not much use in naming your weapons, either.” He made an offended noise, but he chuckled, too.

After they’d sobered again, he resumed his explanation. “When Mahal crafted us, he gave six of his sons wives, their perfect equals. It’s said that when they woke, they didn’t need any explanations or introductions. He’d put everything they needed to know about each other into their hearts, woven it into their souls with mithril.”

“Mithril?”

His gait faltered slightly. “Right. It’s, ah. Picture a metal made from… dawnlight. And as strong as… hmm.” He was silent for a moment or so, then just shrugged slightly and shook his head. “Strong enough to withstand a troll at full strength.”

Her eyes widened; the trolls had been unbelievably strong, to her, and she wasn’t foolish enough to think they’d used anywhere near their full strength on her. Her stunned silence must have convinced Dwalin she appreciated the analogy.

“But he gave Durin a bit of a harder time. The knowledge of his One was still woven into his soul, but he couldn’t access it. He didn’t know what to look for, who to look for, even where to look for her. Most stories say that he was drawn to her as soon as he saw her, when they finally came face to face, but not all, so it’s not clear whether it’s true or not. He and all the children of the other fathers, even now, we can be standing a foot away from our Ones and never know it. But as he got to know her, as he fell more and more in love with her, he saw more and more sides of her that his soul knew. When he saw her glee, then the picture came into view, and he knew that she was his One as surely as if Mahal had personally pointed her out to him. That’s still how it works.”

Again, she thought aloud. “So, during the fight, Fíli saw some side of Ori she hadn’t known was there, and her soul recognized his?”

“Basically.”

She huffed, smiling. “That’s absurdly fanciful for a race as pragmatic as yours.”

He laughed. “What, because it’s not as practical as Hobbits are?”

Her smile turned wry. “No, because it’s almost exactly what Hobbits say.” His head turned sharply, wide eyes meeting hers, brows at what would’ve been his hairline. She tilted her head to match his, still smiling. “We say that we have Mates because our hearts were Mated by E… well, actually, I suppose Dwarves would say our hearts were alloyed or something like that, by Eru Himself, before any of us were made. The analogy my Da always used was that Mates are like fabric, woven from two types of thread. But when we’re born, we’re separated again, because we have to grow and be harvested and sp… well, it’s something of an involved illustration, but basically, we have to grow into who we’re meant to be before we find our Mates, or at least before we’re ready to marry them. He compared trying to be together when it wasn’t time yet to trying to weave with one handful of thread and one handful of raw cotton, or cotton and a seedling.”

He snorted. “Now that is as practical as I expected.”

Chuckling, she hit him lightly on the chest. “As I was saying, he said that fabric made with one thread is easily made and more easily forgotten, but fabric made from two threads is more beautiful by half, and twice as strong.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “I see why you thought of alloys.” The pride in his tone sent warmth all through her; if it hadn’t been for her leg, she would’ve been utterly content.

Several minutes passed in companionable silence before he spoke again. “Would you tell me what had you thinking so intently?”

She was tempted to tell him, not everything, but the story of the Hobbits who were brought to their Mates by the Giver, but despite how badly she wanted to, he wasn’t family. Not technically. Even if he did adopt her, unlikely as that was, half the Shire would still probably want her officially cast out. But she couldn’t not answer at all. He’d accept that, she didn’t doubt that, but she hated lying to him at the best of times. She couldn’t bear to lie to him now.

“My Da would’ve liked you.”

Now he nearly lost his grip on her; she squeaked and clung to his neck more tightly, then hissed as he jostled her leg. He squeezed her good leg in a silent apology, but didn’t speak for a moment. When he did, his voice was rough. “Really?”

Catching her breath again, she nodded and rested her chin on his shoulder. “He was never adventurous. He would’ve been glad I have someone I can trust.”

He huffed. “Here I would’ve thought he’d have been as frightened of me as every Hobbit but you has been.”

“Oh, he would’ve been terrified. Probably would’ve fainted dead away if you showed up on the doorstep.” He snorted lightly, but she could tell he was touched. “But he always worried about me when I ran off. Once he got over the shock, he probably would’ve asked you to look after me himself.” Her breath shook in her chest and spiraled up her throat, winding around her voice until it was almost too small to hear. “I miss him.”

A shaking, sharp exhale left him, and in a handful of instants, he crouched down to set her on her feet, spun around, and embraced her tightly, bending his head over hers. She returned the hold, fighting back tears, but quavered anyway, “Thorin will be mad we st—”

“Thorin can go kiss an Orc; he’d do no different if his Heirs needed it.” The matter-of-fact, unyielding certitude in his voice only made it harder for her to keep from crying, but she already felt better, just being in his arms. Closing her eyes, she nuzzled into his chest as her breath hitched, wishing she could scent-mark him properly. He let loose another shuddering exhale, and his hand covered the back of her neck as he kissed the top of her head. “I’d bear all your pains for you if I could, Sanzigilê.”

For a moment, part of her wondered why he felt so strongly about her missing her father. Then she remembered Balin’s story, remembered Azanulbizar. Dwalin and Balin’s father had been killed there, and knowing what she did of Dwarven aging, he would’ve been about the age she was now, if not a bit younger. He knew how it felt.

That in mind, she nuzzled him again. “But then who would bear yours?”

He chuckled faintly, a bit mournfully. “I’ve borne my own this long. I can carry them awhile longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I am so sorry for the late update, my morning was out of order and it slipped my mind.  
> Secondly, notes: 1) points to anyone who noticed the slight Romeo and Juliet allusion. 2) There are links to the songs Dwalin hums embedded in the fic, I highly suggest you listen at least once, because they're all gorgeous. (Especially the Chava Ballet Sequence; that's one of my favorite melodies in Fiddler On The Roof.) 3) I can't remember if I said this before, but just in case I didn't, rándýr-verndari is the Hobbitish (Icelandic) term for 'predator-protector' and rándýr-verndarar is the plural. 4) Sanziglê means 'my mithril'.  
> Fairly good chance that tomorrow's update will be early in the day.  
> À demain!  
> (P.S., any good artists out there? I'm looking for someone who's good at wings, because apparently I'm terrible at them if I'm not just tracing over someone else's lineart. Pro bono only, unfortunately, but if you're interested, you'll get to see Belda's dragon form before anyone else, so...  
> ...  
> ...I now realize that that's a terrible incentive, but it still stands.)


	21. Belda

Belda clenched her jaw against a yawn; they’d only made camp the night before an hour after sunset, and it had still been dark when Bifur had heard wargs nearby and they’d set out again. Still, the sleep she’d gotten had done wonders for her leg; she didn’t think she could run, if Dwalin let her down for that long, but it didn’t hurt half as much as the day before, and her lingering headache from Azog throwing her was completely gone.

The argument reached a new crescendo, and she rolled her eyes with a scowl. Someone needed to scout ahead. Gandalf wanted her to go. Dwalin and Óin couldn’t be any more opposed. Kíli wasn’t saying anything either way; she knew him well enough to see that he was torn between keeping her safe and defending her right to make the decision herself. (Given that Thorin was nearly as opposed to her going as Dwalin, she couldn’t hold Kíli’s silence against him.)

For all that the dispute was supposed to be about her, she wasn’t actually sure any of them remembered that she was there. A nudge to her arm drew her eyes to Nori as she moved to stand beside her; the thief’s words still smarted, but it had been impossible for Belda not to notice how repentant Nori’d been acting since then. She wouldn’t forget what she’d said, but despite how much she was reminded of her mother, she was beginning to forgive Nori.

Nori met her eyes deliberately, then flicked hers behind them for an instant. Looking ahead again, she shuffled incrementally in front of Belda; holding back a smirk, Belda eased backwards, shooting Kíli a wink and a finger to her lips when he met her eyes.

His frown darkened, but he only mouthed ‘be careful’ at her before facing forward again and shifting closer to Nori to give her more cover.

She felt nearly weightless at the show of trust, and had to consciously keep from giving him a hug or a kiss on the cheek in gratitude. Instead, she backed away from the Company in perfect silence, and crept around them, slow and low to the ground, and was over the rocks and out of sight before any of them even realized she was gone.

As soon as the path opened before her, she stayed even more low, crawling more than she walked, and inching from cover to cover. The Wargs were easily seen and more easily smelt; her wounds throbbed as she saw Azog among the Orcs, and she bared her teeth, growling low in her throat.

But her throat still wasn’t entirely recovered, and the twinge of pain reminded her that she had weeks yet before she could stand alone against a dozen of Azog’s kind. She’d barely held her own against five. Really, she’d barely held her own against three. Still growling, she rolled her shoulders against the feeling of phantom wings, regrounding herself in her Hobbit-form. A noise caught her attention to her left, and she flattened herself against the rocks without a thought. But when she saw what stood some half-dozen yards away, all her breath left her.

A great, impossibly-huge bear stood on the rocks, watching the Orcs, its hackles raised. It looked like no bear she’d ever seen before, its legs too long, its fur rucked up in a sort of mane. She grinned.

She knew a shape-changer when she saw one.

Stealthily, she crept closer to the bear, staying out of view and downwind of Orc, Warg, and bear alike. As she drew near, she picked up the bear’s scent; he was definitely male, and definitely not a Hobbit, or at least not a full Hobbit. Once she was close enough, she hissed quietly, just loud enough to get his attention, and he looked ‘round with a snarl that fell away as soon as he saw her.

Glancing back at the Orcs, he moved closer to her, crouching to hide her from the Orcs’ view if they looked over. One of few things all Hobbits remembered from Anduin was the language of shifters, and clearly the shape-changers on this side of the Misty Mountains had preserved the art as carefully: a combination of vocalizations, gestures, and scent, it was too complex to be understood by any but fellow-kind, or to be used by anyone unshifted. _“What are you, little cousin? I know the scent of every natural-born animal, but yours is one I don’t recognize.”_

As an experiment more than anything else, she answered in Hobbitish. “As you don’t smell like a child of the earth, great-cousin.”

He snorted quietly. _“Not a child of earth, no, but of rain and light, and of starlight.”_

Her brows shot up; children between Men and Elves were rare, but common knowledge. But children between Elves and Hobbits—!

Well, that explained why he didn’t look like a true bear, and why he was so much larger than a Hobbit-bear would be.

He nosed at her gently; at the once-familiar gesture, her eyes fell closed and she fought not to cry. _“You smell of Dwarves, little cousin.”_

Glaring darkly at him, she blinked away the slight blur. “My pack.” He growled quietly, but subsided in recognition of her claim. Relaxing as she saw that he wouldn’t challenge her authority on them, she nodded past him. “The Orcs are after them, one in particular.”

 _“One Orc or one Dwarf?”_ She still didn’t like the way he was saying ‘Dwarf’ like it was a curse, but now he was curious, she could tell.

“Both. You saw the pale Orc, the leader?” He nodded; she grinned. “My commander’s the reason he has a metal arm.”

He gave a surprised, huffing snort and looked back at the Orcs again. Scent turning thoughtful, he met her eyes again. _“You’re their rándýr-verndari?”_ She nodded. _“You still haven’t told me your form, little cousin. Or why you’re bound to Dwarves instead of your own kind.”_

Sobering, she had to fight the urge to curl in on herself. “We’ve been settled in safety for so long that none of the prey remembers there are predators not of our race. Predators are feared, and I’m feared more than any. No matter what you think of the Stone-Born, they’ve accepted me more than my blood-kin did. But they don’t know. They don’t know about soul-forms, and they cannot know of mine.”

Her vision was blurred again, but she didn’t need to see his expression to tell he was concerned. _“Why not yours?”_

She’d always thought Dwalin would be a bear if he were a Hobbit. The way this bear spoke and smelled and behaved, all of it reminded her of him, and that was probably what loosened her tongue more than anything else. Trembling to match her voice, she held his eyes as best she could through the blur. “Because a dragon took their home from them.”

He stared at her for a long moment, long enough that she began to think he’d treat her as her ‘family’ had, then stretched his head forward to lay it on hers. Biting back a relieved sob, she moved forward, wrapping her arms around his neck as best she could when he was so much larger. A moment later, he drew back and deliberately chinned her hair, scent-marking her the same way Kíli unintentionally had all those weeks before. _“You smell of blood, little dragon. You’re injured?”_

Grimacing, she rested her hand on her leg. “Unfortunately. It was my own fault. I wasn’t strong enough.”

 _“My home is near, to the east. Lead your pack there. I’ll keep the Orcs off your tail and off my territory.”_ A pang of guilt struck her, and he nosed her again. _“I need no reason to rid Arda of Orc-scum, little dragon. I would do this even if I knew nothing of your pack.”_

Nodding, she inclined her head slightly to him, leaving her shoulders squared, and held out her right hand, closed into a relaxed fist. “Thank you, great-cousin.”

He stood and bent his head down, resting his paw on hers, then moving it under her hand before they both drew back and straightened. _“Warm fur, sharp teeth, little cousin.”_

“Warm fur, sharp teeth.” With that, she crept back to the cover of the tree-line while he stood between her and the Orcs; when she reached the rocks she’d used for cover before, he gave a bellowing roar, successfully drawing the Orcs’ attention to him and away from the too-exposed rocky area.

The path through the rocks was narrow and winding, so it took her a few moments to see the Company; she really shouldn’t have been surprised to see Thorin and Dori both holding Dwalin back from going after her. As soon as they saw her, though, they released him, and she ran into his arms gladly. “What were you thinking, kit?!”

She raised a brow at him. “That we needed to know how close they were and I’m the only one who had a hope of not being seen?”

“How close is the pack?” She pulled away from Dwalin to face Thorin, but held his arms in place around her.

“Too close. A couple of leagues, no more.”

“Have the wargs picked up our scent?”

She twisted slightly to meet Dwalin’s eyes as she answered. “Not yet, they’re still upwind of us. But they will do.”

“Did they see you?”

Her hands tightened on Dwalin’s sleeves as she glared at Gandalf. “Of course not!”

Gandalf relaxed, obviously pleased with himself. “What did I tell you? Quiet as a mouse.”

A growl tickled her throat, though she didn’t let it actually be audible. _‘Quiet as a fox, thank you.’_

Nori nodded. “Excellent burglar material.” Belda met her eyes for a moment, seeing the wordless question there; after a moment, she returned the nod slightly, and Nori relaxed imperceptibly.

Ori shook his head. “That doesn’t change the fact that they will find our trail eventually.” Belda wasn’t the only one who glanced at him sharply, surprised by the confidence in his voice. He blushed self-consciously a moment later, but Fíli just smiled proudly at him.

Just as Belda was about to suggest heading east, Gandalf mused aloud, “There is a house… it’s not far from here. Where we might, ah…” Something hesitant flashed through his eyes, and she narrowed hers. Did he actually know the bear, or did he have about as much of a plan as he had when he went to Bag-End? “…Take refuge.”

“Whose house? Are they friend or foe?” She was tempted to reassure Thorin herself, but the panic in Gandalf’s eyes was too entertaining for her to rescue him.

Gandalf hesitated. “Neither.” _‘To you, maybe.’_ “He will help us, or… he will kill us.”

The Company grumbled, but Thorin looked them all over, pain in his eyes, then shook his head disgustedly. “What choice do we have?”

A thunderous roar echoed over the rocks, and the Company flinched; Belda tried to react with them, but she was trying not to laugh, so she wasn’t sure how successful she was. No one seemed to notice, though, so she just bit her lip and tried to act scared.

Expression tense, Gandalf answered, “None.”

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

“To the house!” Dwalin cursed under his breath as they followed Tharkûn. It was obvious now that the wizard had little more idea of where they were going than they did; they’d been fools to trust him, but Thorin had been right. They’d had no other choice.

Howls and roars filled the forest behind them: the familiar sound of wargs in their death-throes; the terrifyingly unfamiliar sound of something huge, vicious, and bloodthirsty only just behind the Company.

A dip in the ground made him stumble; Belda jolted with it, nearly sliding off his back entirely, and his heart stopped for a horrible second. Even once she was secure again, he felt frozen, even the thought of losing her more than he could bear.

With Belda on his back, he couldn’t run as quickly as he wanted, and so he was at the back of the line. He saw Bombur overtake everyone, he saw the wizard’s panicked glances toward the roaring, and while he was still some distance from the huge gate, he saw Bombur bounce off the doors to an equally-huge house, Fíli and Bofur impacting an instant later.

A deafening bellow shook the ground he stood on, and he looked ‘round instinctively, and so saw the great, black beast charging toward them. Belda looked back at the same moment that he did; the combination of their motions spun him off-balance and he crashed to the ground, losing his grip of Belda entirely as they rolled. In a flash, he was on his feet and racing for her, but just as quickly, the beast was on her; he howled her name with all the agony of losing her in the Goblin caves as he drew his sword on the beast, but a flash of light blinded him for a crucial instant as Belda screamed. He forced his eyes open, ready to avenge his daughter, but his eyes cleared and he saw—

Belda, alive and laughing as a man twice the size of any Elf placed her gently on his shoulder, the bear nowhere to be seen. The man’s laughter boomed through the air, and Belda grinned at Dwalin. “It’s all right, he’s going to help us!”

Dwalin gaped at her, and would’ve done for some time more if Tharkûn hadn’t broken the silence, obviously as shocked as Dwalin. “So… you know Beorn.”

Belda’s brows lifted as she looked to the man. “Oh, is that your name? I only realized I’d forgotten to ask after I rejoined the Company.”

He smiled fondly at her; Dwalin bit back a snarl. “It is, little bunny.”

Scoffing, she gave him a pointed look; he gave her one back and she rolled her eyes resignedly. “Well, mine’s Belda.”

She steadied herself by grabbing hold of his beard; Dwalin felt as though he’d been stabbed in the chest. Tharkûn chided her, “You might have told us you met him.”

She nodded genially. “I might have.” Expression darkening, she narrowed her eyes at the wizard. “But then again, you were the one who called me a mouse.”

Tharkûn sputtered as Beorn joined her in her glare, apparently offended on her behalf; Dwalin closed his eyes against the sight as he realized: she’d unbalanced them intentionally for the sake of her prank, and evidently not cared a whit that she’d sent him halfway to the Halls of Waiting in the process.

As he opened his eyes again, Thorin moved to stand beside him, looking up at Beorn and Belda. “You spoke with our Burglar, then?”

The man raised a brow. “I did, but I didn’t hear of her title.” She flushed and shrugged when he glanced at her; Thorin began to say something else, but he cut him off. “What help I offer is for the sake of the little bunny and of luring in a few Orcs to hunt. I don’t much care for Dwarves.”

He began to move forward, already visibly dismissing Thorin from his mind, but Belda smacked him, glaring. He glared back, but then (to Dwalin’s conflicted surprise) subsided somewhat and met Thorin’s eyes again. “The Orcs are gone for now, but if they return, you’ll be safer behind barred doors. We should speak inside.”

Despite how much he was telegraphing his distaste of them, he waited for Thorin’s response. After several seconds (during which Belda mouthed several sentences at Thorin that Dwalin didn’t catch, accompanied by nonverbal threats to stab him, presumably if he didn’t do as she advised), Thorin nodded, jaw clenched, and stepped aside to let Beorn lead the way. The man’s freakishly long legs allowed him to reach the door in a handful of steps, while Thorin and Tharkûn followed at a quicker clip, Dwalin numbly keeping pace with them. Most of the Company was assembled by the door, and Dori physically pulled Ori farther away from the man as he drew near; Kíli and Fíli were both a bit closer to the gate than the rest, and fell in step with Thorin as he passed them, shooting him worried looks that only seemed to drive a blade into Dwalin’s heart.

Beorn unlatched the door easily and stepped in without even ducking his head; Belda said something and he laughed again. (The blade in Dwalin’s chest twisted.) The Company followed Dwalin in as Beorn carefully set Belda on the ground again; behind him, he just heard Ori say something about getting closer, and Dori snapped quietly, “Don’t think of it! It’s not natural, none of it!” Beorn stilled, but Dori clearly didn’t notice, as he continued, “It’s obvious: he’s under some dark spell!”

A growl rumbled through the room; all of them fell silent as Beorn straightened to his full height, eyes fixed on Dori and expression savage. Cutting off his growl, he spat something in a language Dwalin had never heard before.

Belda cut him off sharply in the same language, sounding almost affronted.

He responded semi-calmly, then pointed accusingly at Dori without looking away from her.

Her expression faltered, tears building in her eyes as she shook her head. It sounded as though she might have been defending Dori, but then why would she have been so distraught?

Skeptically, he asked something, then gestured to her again.

She cut him off even more sharply than before, voice raw. Dwalin felt as though his world was crumbling. He’d thought he’d known her, but he clearly didn’t; if he had, he would’ve had some idea what they were talking about.

Beorn stilled, and looked and sounded almost pitying.

She scoffed something, nearer to tears than ever.

Whatever he said, it sounded like a statement of fact.

But by the way she reacted, Dwalin thought he must have insulted her mother or something. (He could swear he heard Yavanna’s name, but with how accented it had been, it was impossible to tell if it was or not.) Though, he was starting to think insulting her mother wouldn’t have quite that effect. Insulting her father, on the other hand… (Another blade joined the one in his heart.)

Ori’s expression caught Dwalin’s eye; he almost looked as though he’d recognized something Belda had said, but that didn’t make any sense. (Unless it had been Yavanna’s name he heard.)

Beorn tried to contradict whatever it was she’d said, and she cut him off fiercely with a “Nei, Beorn!”

She continued, voice rising with her emotions, until she was shouting at the giant, voice hoarse with the fury fueling her and the tears she wasn’t allowing to fall.

But strangely, the man almost seemed to deflate. The way he was acting didn’t make sense. He wasn’t behaving as though he were humoring a child, he was behaving as though he were treating with an equal, or even a superior. Even now, with the difference in their bearings, it almost seemed that he was the one who barely came up to her knee, not the other way around. He spoke quietly after she was silent for a few seconds, as contritely as he looked.

She nodded. “Ég veit.”

He spoke again, this time as though he were trying to explain himself.

“Ég veit.”

The third time he spoke, it was with a gentle warning in his tone.

She grinned broadly in a way that spoke of nothing but mischief, and drawled, “Ég veit.”

He laughed and she relaxed; a moment later, he knelt before her and held his hand toward her, closed into a loose fist, palm down, and asked something. Dwalin frowned; the gesture seemed almost formal, and odd in the same way that his obvious respect for her was.

She narrowed her eyes at him thoughtfully and countered with a question of her own.

He clenched his jaw, expression as though he’d bitten into something sour, and responded with another question as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

She thought for a moment before speaking; he hummed skeptically.

Sighing, he turned to Thorin. “Bunny says you’ll be my guests for a week at most. Is that accurate?”

Thorin was just close enough for Dwalin to be able to watch him and Beorn at the same time, and so he saw the momentary pause before he answered. “Yes.” Dwalin’s brow rose; Thorin must have been as thrown as Dwalin was if that was all he could think to say.

Beorn sighed again, then glanced at Belda. “Seems I’ll have to learn to live with the smell of Dwarf, then.”

Grinning ecstatically, she laughed and put her hand on one of Beorn’s knuckles, then pressed the back of her hand to his fingers. Again, Dwalin felt as though he were seeing something deeply formal, but how would she know any of his customs, or he hers? Belda’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “You get used to it.”

Used t— Ah. Dwalin wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be offended. Of course, if he tried to laugh, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep from falling apart. Beorn, though, had no such compunctions, and laughed heartily. “But you have the advantage, bunny.” _‘What?’_ To Dwalin’s satisfaction, Belda seemed as confused as he was, and Beorn’s laughter trailed off after a moment. “You don’t…”

He frowned thoughtfully, but the silence was broken after a moment; Bofur yelped and knocked into Dwalin from his other side, then grabbed onto him. Dwalin glared at him, ready to use whatever means necessary to get the miner off, but movement distracted him: there was a mouse on Bofur’s foot. Or at least it looked like a mouse. It was quite a bit larger than any mouse Dwalin had seen before, but it definitely wasn’t a rat. Bofur tried to shake the rodent off, still holding onto Dwalin for balance, but didn’t succeed before a huge hand gripped his jacket and pulled him into the air; a ripple of motion spread through the Company, but an almost-inaudible hiss from Belda stilled them all.

“I don’t like Dwarves.” Surprisingly, Beorn only kept Bofur a foot or so off the ground, but he did pull him closer. “I think you’re greedy, and proud,” the man’s eyes fell to the mouse and he held his other hand under Bofur’s foot, “and blind to the lives of those you deem lesser than your own.” The mouse sniffed at Beorn’s hand, then hopped into it; Beorn set Bofur down, not gently, but not particularly roughly, either. In his hand, the rodent looked no bigger than any mouse; smoothly, he turned and held it out to Belda, who had to use both hands to hold it, smiling. “But little bunny claims you as her pack, and I don’t think she would take it kindly if I denied you assistance.”

At that, Belda smirked up at him, and a wave of deja vu swept over Dwalin; for an instant, he was in the Shire again, watching an almost-feral girl use a wizard to corroborate her argument, though he clearly didn’t wish to. He hadn’t known her then, but now he could see the same oddity in the interaction: she was timid at times, withdrawn at others, but now and during that first meeting in the Shire, she’d carried herself as though she were the equal of any Hobbit, Dwarf, or wizard there. It was something she only did when she was challenging someone, or being challenged, or when she gave the Company ord…

Beorn interrupted Dwalin’s thoughts as he strode to the door, the Company jumping out of his way before they could be trampled. “I must keep my borders secure, but I will return the day after tomorrow. Tell the animals what you need, and mistreat them only if you wish to see the Halls of Mandos sooner rather than later. And do not stray outside between sundown and sunup, on your peril.”

With that, he left. After a moment, the Company began cautiously exploring; Dwalin hung back, watching Belda as his thoughts returned to the line Beorn had broken.

In retrospect, she’d been half-feral as well as half-starved when they met her in the Shire; Hobbits had ‘packs’, not ‘clans’ or ‘tribes’ or any number of more common terms; the ponies had trusted her from that first night, and even wargs seemed hesitant to attack her; the Trolls had been almost eager to believe that she ate Dwarves on a regular basis—

The thought reminded him of the Goblins, when they’d smelled something they called ‘the Eater’ on he and Kíli, the two of the Company who’d been in the most contact with her in the hours just before; they’d also gone straight for her when the Company landed. When Radagast had appeared, there had been something odd between them, and then she’d somehow sensed Elrond’s magic when none of the Company could, when he’d said that almost no one could. After Thorin had given her the contract, when she’d explained Hobbit thinking, he’d thought for a moment that she was something alien and otherworldly.

She was as lethal as a wildcat, and as feral when she was truly fighting. When she was asleep, especially when she’d been asleep with Kíli, she was catlike, and calling her ‘kit’ was as natural or more so as calling the Heirs ‘pups’. She’d called Hobbits’ Ones ‘Mates’, she’d somehow persuaded Beorn, the shape-changer Gandalf had said was as likely to kill them as not, to help them, and Beorn seemed to respect her authority with the Company as Thorin would a fellow King.

She may have bonded quickly with the Heirs, but it had taken her until Rivendell, at least, to be truly comfortable with them or Dwalin, and she hadn’t really been comfortable with the rest of them until after that. Over a month.

And then she met Beorn at dawn and not even six hours later, was at ease around him in a way that she only displayed around Dwalin. The two of them shared a language, shared enough customs to seem to barely need words.

Did they share anything else?

She turned to Thorin, and Dwalin realized he’d said something. “…y mother taught it to me. She traveled all over.”

Thorin scowled. “That wasn’t the sort of fluency you just pick up.”

Amiably, she nodded, idly petting the mouse. “Yes, but I never said she wasn’t fluent. She learned it well, and she taught me well.” By virtue of knowing to look for it, Dwalin was able to see the tension in her expression, but she hid it masterfully. A month earlier, he would’ve been impressed, but now he couldn’t help but wonder what else she was hiding.

“You still haven’t told us how you persuaded him to help, my dear.”

Before she could respond to Gandalf, a huge grey-black dog came into the room. It blinked at them for a few moments, tilting its head, then barked. Belda glanced back at the Company, apparently as bewildered as they were, then faced the dog again. “Um, is there a table we could use? Or chairs?”

The dog chuffed, then left the room. Bofur scoffed. “What was that, lass?”

She shrugged defensively. “Well, he said to tell the animals what we need; I thought it was worth a t—”

The dog returned with half a dozen others and as many ponies. While the dogs got out boards and trestles from the side walls, two of the ponies pushed two wide, low-seated benches toward the fire while the others rolled in polished, drum-shaped logs. The boards and trestles were quickly assembled into tables low enough even for Belda, with the benches at the head, or perhaps the foot, as they left one end conspicuously empty. Two sheep entered with a tablecloth, which they spread out, while a large, coal-black ram carried a large bag. The bag was set down on one of the benches, and the ram then went to Belda and baaed insistently. She nodded and held out a hand, which it butted gently, but it kept its head low as it backed away from her.

The scene, to Dwalin, was reminiscent of a Queen dismissing a servant; try as he might, he couldn’t banish the image, and after it occurred to him, he couldn’t ignore the way all the animals inclined their heads or bared their necks slightly to Belda as they passed her on the way out. He glanced at the others in the Company, but they seemed too bewildered by the scene as a whole to notice anything about Belda in particular.

Part of Dwalin was glad about that; he wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but he wasn’t sure he wanted anyone else to know until he was sure.

After the animals left, Belda sat at the table gingerly. “So, that happened.” She looked down at the mouse in her hands as though just remembering it was there, then placed it gently on the floor; rather than immediately fleeing, it nosed at her fingers for a moment, then squeaked and scurried away.

She watched it go with a smile, but pain flashed over her face as soon as she straightened again; hissing, she rested her hand on her leg for an instant. When she drew her hand back, red stained her fingers, and panic drove Dwalin’s previous thoughts entirely out of his head.

“Kit, why didn’t you say something?” He reached her side at the same time as Óin, but could only sit on her other side, feeling useless.

She frowned at him through her winces as Óin cut through her bandages. “It just needs rewrapping, Dwalin.”

Intellectually, he knew she was probably right, but he couldn’t help but worry anyway. Óin gave a satisfied grunt as he uncovered her wound; Dwalin’s panic faded slightly as he saw that she was right, after all. Two finger-widths of the center of the wound was bleeding sluggishly, but the rest was knitting together well. A slow exhale leaving him in his relief, he pulled her gently against his side; she began to lean against him, but jolted away with a whimper, one hand rising to her bandaged ear.

Óin grimaced. “That’ll need to be redressed, too.”

Belda blanched, her hand cupping protectively over her ear; remembering how extreme her reactions were when the injury was aggravated in any way, Dwalin held Óin’s eyes, enunciating carefully. “Could somewhere more private be found?”

He had to repeat himself, but Óin (eventually) nodded. “Aye, and having a bit more light wouldn’t be amiss, either.”

A few minutes later, Dwalin lowered Belda to the ground, solidly in a patch of sunlight. The pear orchard wasn’t the largest grove Dwalin had seen, but it was large enough to give Belda some privacy. She’d only grown more anxious in the minutes since Óin’s first pronouncement, and by now, she looked more likely to faint than anything else. As such, he sat beside her and pulled her onto his lap; Óin pulled a scrap of leather out of the medical bag the animals had given them.

She paled further as she took it, if that was possible, but bit down on it regardless and gripped Dwalin’s forearm tightly. With how she was sitting, her leg had to be paining her, but she didn’t seem to care, and he wrapped his free arm around her back, holding her in place. Beginning to hyperventilate, she screwed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead against his jaw with enough force to bruise her, if not him. Sorrow in his eyes, Óin began to pull off the bandages.

Her strangled scream cut Dwalin to the core; her hands clenched on his arm until he was sure he’d bruise, but he only held her more securely; she arched up as she screamed, straining away from Óin, but Dwalin, eyes burning, held himself still, not giving an inch. Every time Óin so much as nudged her ear, she screamed again, bloodcurdling even through the makeshift gag, and before long, she was sobbing as often as she shrieked.

Through it all, Dwalin held her, gritting his teeth against the tears that burned his eyes and throat, hating himself for not alleviating her pain, but knowing it was necessary. But knowing didn’t make it any easier.

It felt an eternity, but it couldn’t have been more than a handful of minutes before Óin drew back, shaking his head. Murmuring nothings to her, Dwalin managed to transfer her grip from his arm to his jacket; that done, he wrapped both arms around her, cradling the back of her head with care not to bump her newly-bandaged ear. She still sobbed into his chest, but she was able to throw aside the piece of leather, at least.

Óin retrieved the leather and tucked away in the bag, before holding Dwalin’s eyes. “It’s not healing as fast as the rest. There’s no obvious infection, but knowing how she got it, it wouldn’t be a surprise if that was what’s slowing it down.” He paused, eyes falling to her sorrowfully. “It’ll need to be redressed once a day while we’re here.”

Dwalin tightened his hold on her reflexively, quailing at the thought of going through that, feeling and listening to her go through that, even once more, let alone at least half a dozen times. At the same moment, her breath caught, then her sobs redoubled, her grip tightening on his jacket. Heart breaking for her, he could only shush her softly and begin to rock gently from side to side.

Óin huffed, eyes soft. “As bad as Glóin, you are.” Dwalin glared at him; he still hadn’t had that conversation with her. Óin held up his hands in mock-defeat and packed up, but as he left, he glanced at her ear again and huffed again, this time with morbid amusement. “Like father, like daughter.”

By Óin’s standards, it was an unobtrusive mutter, but for anyone with two working ears, it was more than loud enough to hear from where Dwalin and Belda sat. Dwalin glared at him again, but the old physician was already leaving and so didn’t see it. Once he was gone, Dwalin focused again on Belda, and hummed the songs he had the day before. It had seemed to help her then, it was worth another try. Her sobs eased more when he hummed _Little Jewel_ and _Long Ago_ , so he repeated those several times, until finally her sobs eased away entirely.

By then, they were at the very edge of the patch of sunlight, and Dwalin kissed her temple tenderly. “All right now?” Silently, she nodded, and he thought that was the end of it.

He thought wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, DUUUHNNN! Three guesses what the next chapter's going to start with.  
> Also, canon says nothing about where Beorn's kind came from, so I made some stuff up. He's a shape-changer, so obviously he has to be related to Hobbits, but he obviously isn't a full Hobbit (and the way he changes shapes isn't like how Hobbits do) so he obviously must be mostly something else, and he can't be half-Man, that wouldn't do anything, really, except make him tall. So he has to be half-Elven. (Mostly Elven, really.) On that note, yes, I changed Beorn's shift. No naked dudes in this fic, thank you. Just... *shudders* Blegh.  
> Also-also, the complete lack of any prop alteration in the movies annoys me. Like in BoTFA, when Bilbo and Bard (and Thranduil) are passing the Arkenstone back and forth and it's magically growing and shrinking so that it looks the same size in a Man's hands as a Hobbits. Or, when they meet Beorn and the abnormally small mouse (considering Dwarves aren't as large as Tall Folk) magically becomes twice the size so that it's not too small in Beorn's hands. It-- just-- It's like Jackson just completely forgot that these characters are radically different sizes when it wasn't convenient to him. It *really* bugs me, in case you couldn't tell. Plus, the book mentions that most of the animals at Beorn's house were freakishly big, just like him, so... Giant mouse. To us, it would be about the size of a Guinea Pig. To Beorn, it's normal size. But to Dwarves and Hobbits? Have you heard of R.O.U.S? (^u^)  
> (Alright, it would only be as big as a groundhog, but still.)  
> Also-also-also, 'Little Jewel' is the Chava Ballet Sequence (since there's almost no way Dwarves would have a song affectionately calling someone 'little bird', and 'Long Ago' is Distant Melody.  
> I don't know if you're going to enjoy the next chapter, but I will. (^w^)  
> À demain!


	22. Dwalin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two reveals for the price of one!

“Dwalin, what did he mean, ‘like father, like daughter’?” Her voice was almost inaudible, but he still heard her well enough to freeze. “None of you ever met my father. And he compared you to Glóin…” She trailed off; an irrational fear clawed at Dwalin’s chest, the conviction that she’d push him away. Almost as soon as he thought that, she did push him away, just enough to meet his eyes, hers still red-rimmed and swollen. “Dwalin?” 

Heart hammering in his chest, he tried to speak several times before he could force any sound past his lips. “K—kit, did Balin or— or one of the others tell you anything of Dwarven braids?” Brow furrowed, she shook her head. “Well, hair— hair is important to Dwarves. The only time it’s ever permissible to intentionally touch another’s hair is if—” She blinked up at him ingenuously; his chest ached as he realized that this could be the last time he could hold his daughter. But he had to tell her. Heavily, he finished, “If they’re family.”

For an instant, her curious expression didn’t change. Then, like a bolt of lightning, her eyes widened and she inhaled in a shocked, trembling gasp. Tears gathered in her eyes as she stared up at him; he forced himself to finish what he’d started. “When I braided your hair just before the Goblin caves, that was a— a declaration of sorts, telling the Company that I think of you as a daughter and that I’ll protect you as such whether you consider me a father or not,” she was just staring up at him, open-mouthed, breath hitching softly as tears spilled over her cheeks, “which you’re under no obligation to— if you want me to stop, I will, I’ll still keep you safe, but I won’t bother you, I—”

She lunged up, winding her arms around his neck, her face buried in his hair as she trembled. He couldn’t move, terrified to think she didn’t mean what he thought, equally afraid to hope she did. Thickly, she whispered, “I’ve wanted you to be my father for days, but I never hoped—” She cut herself off as her breath hitched, tightening her grip on him.

As her words sunk in, he wrapped his arms gingerly around her, and slowly, he let himself believe he hadn’t imagined it. His breath caught, and again, and then he found himself laughing, or was he crying? He couldn’t tell, but with her in his arms and the knowledge that she claimed him in return shining in his soul like mithril, he didn’t care. Nothing mattered but his daughter, and Thorin could take all of Erebor’s treasures and choke on them if he had a problem with it.

His daughter was his, and she called him father. All the gold in all of Arda may as well have been a pile of leaves in comparison, the Arkenstone may as well have been a grain of sand, every accolade and achievement he’d collected in a hundred and seventy-nine years of life may as well have been chaff. Nothing could ever equal this, equal her.

He pressed a kiss to her head and she drew back just enough to meet his eyes; she was blurred, but he could see her teary laugh as she clumsily wiped at his cheeks. Gently, he cradled her head in both of his hands, wiping her cheeks in return, before pressing a kiss to her forehead. She giggled, and in a rare display of mischief, he peppered kisses all over her face, just to hear her laugh. Finally, laughing and crying in equal measure, they leaned their foreheads together and just held each other.

For a few minutes, they stayed like that, but eventually, he drew back, holding her eyes. “Kit— You’re sure? Truly?”

She grinned up at him. “If you are.”

Impulsively, he kissed her temple again, then ran his hand over her braid. “I should redo this.”

“Why?” Despite the question, she turned obediently to sit with her back to him, and he began carefully working her hair free.

“I claimed you as my Nâthu-ib-Banth in Rivendell, my sworn daughter, but all that did was put you under my protection. By braiding your hair in front of witnesses, especially the King, I claimed you as my Nâthu-ib-Bujbu, my chosen daughter, but that’s only an informal claim. By braiding in a bead of the Line of Borin of the House of Durin, I claim you as my Nâthu-id-Zadkh, my Daughter of the Line.” Letting the last of her braids unravel themselves, he leaned forward to hold her eyes, chucking her chin gently. “Any Dwarf who sees your braid and bead will know that you are my daughter and heir as surely as if you were my Nâthu-id-Damâm, daughter of blood.”

Her eyes widened slightly and she shook her head. “Heir— Dwalin, I don’t need to be your heir, I don’t need anything! Just being your daughter is enough.”

Smiling tenderly, he kissed her temple, then leaned his head on hers; her eyes fell shut as he did, and she leaned into his touch the way she did when she was especially worked up. “I’m not likely to have any other children, kit.” _‘No matter how much I may want them_.’

He swallowed hard against the grief the thought brought; he loved Belda dearly, and if she was the only child he ever had, he would be blessed beyond any of his hopes. But part of him still longed for children of his own, to hold an infant and see his eyes looking up at him, to watch his child grow into a Dwarf as strong as his or her big sister.

And to sit next to his One and watch their children play. It was as much or more of a fool’s dream than wanting more children, he knew, but he couldn’t quite banish the image. Not after seeing the joy on Ori and Fíli’s faces.

A cool hand on his cheek interrupted his thoughts, and he met Belda’s eyes to see a profound sympathy there, as if she knew what he was thinking. Vision blurring, he leaned his forehead against hers again, and remained there for nearly a minute before he pulled back again. “You’ll want to cover your ear, kit.”

Once she had her hand cupped over the bandage, he began. Above her wounded ear, he wove three small braids leading down to the nape of her neck, successfully gathering all the hair that could brush against her ear into one or another of the braids. After she’d pinched off those braids, he turned his attention to the rest of her hair. How curly it was made it difficult, but several minutes later, he’d pulled it into a moderately thick plait, running from her temple down around her uninjured ear to merge with the smaller braids, then continue over her shoulder. His bead, he worked in a few inches from the end of the braid.

But the silence and familiar routine of braiding left him too much space for thought.

She’d looked at him as though she’d known what he was thinking. How?

And once he wondered that, his earlier thoughts came back to him, until his mind was a chaotic whirl of observations and questions that only left him glad that the braid was as simple as it was, for fear he wouldn’t have had the concentration for anything more complex.

“..lin? Dwalin!” Abruptly, he snapped out of his daze; Belda’s eyes were wide and frightened, and strangely worried.

“I’m almost done, kit.” In the aftermath of the Carrock, before she’d woken, one of the few breaks in the monotony of waiting had been when Ori had silently handed him a half dozen thin yarn braids, and he pulled one out of his pocket now to use as a ribbon to tie off her plait.

But even as he did, she shook her head, still worried. “No, what’s wrong? You weren’t hearing anything.”

For a moment, he only looked at her. To ask her or not?

The moment was as peaceful as could be, or had been until his brooding had spoiled it, and should be happy. Did he want to ruin it by bringing up things she clearly didn’t want anyone to notice?

But it was weighing on him, and if he let it fester, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to bring it up calmly again. And if he brought it up now, then they could clear the air, start fresh.

She still looked concerned; letting go of her braid, he tugged her against his chest again, though he left his hold loose enough that he could hold her eyes as he slowly spoke. “Kit… The animals are strange around you. And not just these, the ponies acted the same, from the day you joined us. And Gandalf was uneasy about asking Beorn for help, but you spoke to him for a handful of minutes and you persuaded him, and that’s not to mention the fact that you’re fluent in his language, and the way you are around him… you’re barely that comfortable with me.”

The entire time he’d been speaking, she’d been getting paler and paler; he hesitated for a moment, but it was better that they discuss it now, no matter how uncomfortable it was. “None of us could sense anything heading into Rivendell, but you did, and when Radagast appeared, it was almost like the two of you recognized each other, or at least he recognized you. And when you and Beorn were arguing, he was treating you like you were the more dangerous one, like you’re strong enough to threaten him even with how huge he is, and when Dori said what he did, Beorn reacted as though Dori had insulted you as well as him. Kit…” He searched her expression for a moment, seeing the resignation seep in. “You are not a Dwarf. But are you…”

He didn’t know how to say it. It seemed ludicrous to even think it, but she smiled timorously. “I should’ve known not to underestimate you.” Trembling, she swallowed, one hand drifting up to her braid, to his bead, her bead, now. “You said the story about Durin wasn’t for others. You asked me to keep the secret.” Breath catching, she shivered, still holding his eyes. “Will you keep mine?”

With how pleading her expression was, how afraid, there was only one answer he could give. “Aye, kit. I swear on my beard.”

Her eyes seemed to search his for several seconds; evidently, she found what she was looking for, as her expression eased a fraction. But he couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t relax, that her grip on her bead turned white-knuckled, that even as the plea left her eyes, the fear stayed. It wasn’t hard to put it together.

With the way her ‘family’ treated her, maybe it wasn’t a surprise she was afraid Dwalin would reject her, but it stung nonetheless. She truly thought he would abandon her so easily?

“Hobbits were made by Yavanna.” He blinked at her. The words had rushed forward in a jumbled blurt, and she just watched him for a moment. But even after he’d processed what she’d said, he couldn’t really say he was shocked; surprised, yes, but between the love of plants and peace and the emphasis on family, it made sense.

When he didn’t really react other than to nod, she continued. “But Yavanna— she didn’t understand. Plants, fields, yes, but not pain or grief. Our stories say ‘her understanding of these things was as the land’s: that pain was caused by alien others, that pain must be endured, and that escape was impossible.’ She didn’t understand that people couldn’t live like plants. But she made us anyway, ‘out of the soil and the rain and the light’, and she went to Eru to plead for us. She didn’t realize that He’d already decided to adopt us like He did you.” Dwalin huffed out a laugh; she gave him a shaky smile.

“So she went, and the Hobbits played, and Vána got curious.” His brows jumped up; her smile, such as it was, evaporated. “She and Oromë both went and looked and found the Hobbits, and they were horrified. Hobbits don’t call Vána ‘Ever-Young’ like Elves and Men do, you know.” The abrupt change of subject was bewildering, but she kept speaking without waiting for a reaction. “Elrond told me some stories of the Valar while we were in Rivendell, and according to him, the most important thing Vána ever did was make a wedding dress for Nessa.”

Despite himself, Dwalin laughed; her irate scowl was as petulant as when she’d brought up her ‘little pest’ of a cousin the night she joined the Company. She startled at the sound, a bit of color returning to her face in a pink blush, but she continued quickly. “She wasn’t only beautiful, and she wasn’t only the ‘Queen of Flowers’. In our oldest histories, we remember her as her husband’s equal, and fiercer than him in a pinch. We call her Eldfreyja, the ‘fire-fae’, because she was as fierce as fire when she fought to protect her own.

“And Oromë, we don’t call him ‘horn-blower’ like the Elves do, we call him Húsbóndi Veiðimaður, the Master Hunter, greater than any predator. Though, more often than not, we call him Tauron, just ‘cause it’s shorter.” A gleam of a grin flashed over her face almost too quickly to see. “The two of them, they knew how hard the world was, and so they—” Faltering, she blanched a shade paler, and lowered her voice until he had to strain to hear it, holding his eyes all the while. “So they made us a gift. They gave us soul-forms.”

“Soul-forms?” He took the unfamiliar term slowly; she nodded, eyes huge and scared.

“We have Hobbit-forms and soul-forms, ever since then. Hobbits who want to run can become fleeing-prey, Hobbits who want to stand their ground but not fight if they don’t have to can become fighting-prey, and Hobbits who want to fight can become predators.” A ghost of a smile trembled on her lips. “Da was a beaver. Big as one of Beorn’s sheep, or nearly. He always stood his ground, always had to be doing something, always put his pack before anything and anyone else.”

“So—” She immediately shrank in on herself, but Dwalin only noticed enough to adjust his arms more securely around her. “So, your parents, they could change like Beorn did? Just a flash and they were animals?”

Hesitantly, she shook her head. “Not exactly. I don’t know why there’s the light when Beorn shifts, but otherwise, yes. It only takes a blink, and everything we’re wearing or holding in our Hobbit-forms is gone with them, and vice-versa, if we pick something up in our soul-forms, it’ll disappear when we shift back.”

Exhaling slowly, he shook his head. He’d seen it, with Beorn, but there was something different about hearing her detail it as though it were as common as tattoos. Frowning as a thought occurred to him, his arms tightened around her of their own volition. “What if Beorn had you on his shoulder when he changed?”

To his relief, she shook her head. “It’s different with living things. And there’s enough different about Beorn that I don’t know it would work exactly as it would if he were a full Hobbit. But probably, if he shifted while he was carrying me, I’d either fall a few feet since he’s taller in Ho… um, his usual form, or I’d fall off, since his soul-form’s wider.” Speaking of the giant drew his thoughts back to the way she’d acted with him, and a sour feeling settled into his gut. She didn’t seem to notice, though, only stared off into space. “He reminds me of you.”

He jolted. “What?”

She blinked up at him, some of her normal color returning as she smiled, warm and bright and young in a way he’d never seen when she was happy. “I’ve thought you’d be a bear if you were a Hobbit since Rivendell. Big and scary and protective, and gentler than you look. Beorn makes me think of you.” The awful heartache and matching knot of jealous anguish in his gut melted away quickly enough to leave him off-balance in his relief; she just closed her eyes and nuzzled against his chest, still smiling. “We have a story about a great-great-Eru-knows-how-many-greats-grandfather of mine, Bullroarer Took. As tall as a Dwarf and fierce enough to ride out against a horde of Goblins, and he was a bear.”

She was silent for a long moment, and her voice was musing when she finally spoke. “I used to try and picture my parents doing what Bullroarer did. I never could. Da might’ve thought of it, but he would’ve said it was the place for someone who could truly fight, not a beaver who’d be better put to use building barricades.” She was silent again, as long as before, and he glanced down as she spoke to see that she was holding onto her bead again. “My mother would’ve thought of it, but she never would’ve done it. She would’ve taken Da and run and left the Shire to fend for itself.”

Her voice shook with her breath, and he kissed her crown before he even thought, lingering there until he could feel that her tears were gone. “But you, you would’ve done it. And if I know you at all, you would’ve done it to protect your home and your family, an—” She cut herself off with a vivid blush.

For a moment, he didn’t understand. Then he saw that her grip on her bead was white-knuckled again. As he understood, he didn’t need to think. He just leaned down and kissed her again. “Aye, kit. I’d ride out to protect you, too.”

He already had. On the cliffs, when she’d stood alone against Azog, he hadn’t realized Fíli and Kíli were running behind him until he was nearly to the bottom of the tree. He’d been ready to again, when Beorn grabbed her.

For an instant, a cynical voice wormed at the back of his mind, but he quashed it ruthlessly. If anything, the fact that she was telling him all this made her more trustworthy, not less.

But she tensed. Confused, he drew back; her blush had fled, but she’d paled again, eyes distant as she held onto her bead. _‘She’s still afraid_.’

Brow furrowed, he thought over what she’d said, and considered what she hadn’t. He was starting to suspect that she had ample reason not to want to talk about her mother, so he didn’t begrudge her the omission. But… “What are you, kit?”

She startled, but for the first time in he wasn’t sure how long, she flinched away from him, not towards; in the same instant, she paled further and her eyes shot to his, huge and even more afraid than when the conversation began. When she spoke, her eyes darted between the grey streaks in his beard, never back to his eyes; her voice was higher than usual, and she trembled, invisibly but perceptibly all the same. “We come of age at our First Shift, that’s the first time we can actually shift into our soul-form, although by then, we’ve known what we are for years, it builds up all through our tweens, and we don’t really change, I mean, we do physically, but our minds are still the same, we don’t get overrun by our instincts or anything, we don’t do anything we wouldn’t do in our Hobbit-forms if we could—”

Gently, he interrupted, “Kit,” but she only paled further, spoke faster and higher.

“—and we don’t tell anyone but family, I guess we could, but it’s like a Dwarf telling someone his secret name, it’s just not done, not until the First Shift, and in the Wandering Days, sometimes rival packs didn’t tell each other their shifts even after they came of age, not until they were sure they wouldn’t use the knowledge against them somehow—”

The entire time she’d been speaking, dread had been building in his gut; he hadn’t seen her so terrified since their first talk in Rivendell, when she’d thought he’d hurt her—

...But... no, she knew he wouldn’t. She knew, she trusted him, she’d taken his bead, how could she think—

But what she was talking about, how she was avoiding his question, it was like she was desperate to assure him that she wasn’t truly like whatever her... her soul-form was. But what could she be that was so horrible?

“Kit.” She didn’t stop, and with a worried growl, he took hold of her shoulders and shook her once, faintly. “Kit!” Now she did stop, but he couldn’t be sure whether it was because he’d gotten her attention or because she was too petrified for speech. Regardless, he cupped her face in his hands, eyes burning as she flinched again. “Kit, tell me what you are.” Eyes watering, she shook harder, but she didn’t refuse or pull away. “A warg? A balrog? What cou—”

“I’m a dragon!” Shock froze him even while she trembled; bewilderment drew his brows together while she shrank in on herself; all in all, his mind was roaring such that he barely even noticed as she leaned further and further away from his motionless hands.

How could she be a dragon— how could she be like Smaug— a monster?!? Against his will, he remembered her bloodthirsty grin as she fought the Orcs. How casually she’d spoken of getting rid of the Goblins, because ‘they were in the way’. How well she lied.

A _thud_ snapped him out of his daze; now on the ground, Belda scrabbled back, away from him, sobs wracking her as she clutched at her bead. “Pl— please, don’t— I won’t sh— show anyone, I sw— swear! Just— please, don’t take it back, please!”

For a moment, he couldn’t hear her at all. His mind filled with memories: her grin when they sparred, just as wild and feral as when she fought; how incensed she’d been at the thought of valuing one life over another, and how even before they reached Rivendell, she preferred the Company to any others; how she’d lied to protect them from the Trolls, and how vehement she’d been that Beorn protect them, as well.

How shocked she’d been to be praised in Rivendell. How quickly she’d assumed that Nori had used a cruel slur against her with full knowledge of its meaning. How horrified she’d been at the idea of not wanting a One.

How anguished she’d been at the thought of anyone not caring about love, though he suspected she had someone specific in mind.

How desperately she’d embraced him less than an hour before.

How she’d begged them to leave her to the Trolls, how she’d rushed into his arms once he assured her that he wasn’t angry, how devastated she’d been after Thorin’s outburst on the cliffs.

The last thought rekindled his anger from that day, and the heartbroken way she flinched back from him only steeled his resolve. Pushing to his feet, he caught up with her in two swift strides, ignoring her fresh sobs, and yanked her into his arms as he knelt the same way he had in Rivendell.

For a moment, she was still and silent; weakly, her sobs returned and she tried, vainly, to push him away. “Wh— What are y—ou doing? I’m a drag— I’m a dragon. I’m a dragon.” As he held her, she repeated the last sentence again and again, brokenly, as though it was the only thing that mattered, or the only thought she could muster.

Cutting her off, he drew back far enough to meet her eyes, no farther. “You’re my daughter.” Her eyes were still afraid, but there was hope there, too; as she blurred, he closed the distance between them to press his forehead against hers. “Whatever else you are, you. are. my. daughter, and not even Melkor himself can change that, not if I had to fight every Orc in Arda to keep you safe.”

Streaks of light were all he could see of the tears that spilled over her cheeks. “But—”

She cut herself off, eyes falling shut, as he cradled the back of her head. Closing his eyes, he kissed where his forehead had been, then wrapped her in his arms again, resting his chin on top of her head. “Dwarves love fiercely, kit. It’ll take more than finding out you’re a shape-changer to make me regret giving you my bead.”

Her voice broke his heart, tiny as it was. “But I’m a dragon.”

He took a deep breath, unable to deny that he wasn’t quite at ease with that fact yet. But even so… “Are you like Smaug?”

“No!” The horrified speed of her denial could only be genuine, and something loosened in his chest. “I’m not a fire-drake, I don’t even have scales! And—”

He glanced down as she bit her tongue; his lips twitched with a shadow of amusement to see she could find something in the situation to be embarrassed about. “What?”

Her blush darkened in the instant before she hid her face in his chest. “I don’t think it’s treasure I hoard.”

Even muffled, her mortification was clear enough. “What do you hoard, then?” A twinge of fear wormed at the back of his mind, but her words dispelled it easily.

“I found myself getting very possessive of the ponies before we left them in Rivendell.” He lasted a beat, perhaps two, before a laugh burst out of him with all the subtlety of a cave-troll. She poked him, scowl clear in her voice. “Not funny. That’s why I got caught by the Trolls; I was so preoccupied with gettingback what was mine that I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings.”

That caught his attention; he couldn’t stop laughing entirely, not with how utterly fitting it was that a Hobbit would hoard things as ordinary as ponies, but he sobered enough to ask, “Truly?”

She hummed noncommittally, then half-shrugged. “Sort of.” When she didn’t continue immediately, he poked her in the side; she smacked his hand, but settled back in his arms so she wasn’t hiding anymore, at least. “The months before our First Shifts are… disorienting. To say the least. I’ve been dreaming of being a dragon for nearly a decade, every night for about two years, I think, but the last few months…” She shook her head uneasily. “I forget, sometimes, that I’m only a Hobbit. Especially on the Carrock.” Remembering that terror, he shuddered and curled around her; she returned his hold tightly. “The entire time on the Eagles, I thought I was the one flying, like in my dreams.”

The longing in her voice broke his heart; he couldn’t understand it, not for the sky, but she sounded like Thorin did when he spoke of Erebor. In his quieter moments, anyway. When he spoke of it to others who remembered it, he usually spoke in terms of vengeance and grief. But when he spoke of it to Dís, or to Fíli and Kíli, this was how he sounded: as though the hope of reaching it was all that kept him moving, and that every heartbeat felt the absence.

Letting loose a shuddering breath, he pressed a kiss to her crown. “It’s dangerous?”

Sniffling, she shook her head. “Not usually, not by itself. But in the next few weeks…” After a moment of silence, she held his eyes grimly. “The closer we get to my coming of age, the harder it’ll be for me to remember I’m a Hobbit. I’ll hesitate more, or I might go too far, and I’ll start acting more like a fox: growling, snarling, pu—” She froze abruptly, horrorstruck. “Oh, Tennur Tauron, I hope I don’t purr!”

Frowning, he chucked her under the chin, drawing her eyes back to his. “What do you mean, like a fox? You said you’re a dragon.”

Her expression tightened somewhat, but she still smiled faintly. “I am. Fox-dragon, really. I don’t know enough about dragons to know if that’s what they’re meant to be like or if I’m some sort of amalgamation, but I’m definitely not a reptile, or a fire-drake.”

He still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it, but he focused enough to ask, “If you aren’t a fire-drake, what are you?”

Her expression fell again, this time to something lost he’d never seen on her before. “I don’t know. It’s like there’s something… missing from the dreams. Something I can’t see. Whatever it is, it’s something to do with plants, I think.”

He huffed lightly. “There’s a surprise.” Leaning down with a playful growl, he peppered kisses over her face again, and for a few minutes, they just laughed.

When they finally settled down, it was because her stomach growled loudly enough to scare birds out of the nearby trees; still laughing, they headed back toward the house. “But you are sure it’s safe?”

Smiling, she leaned her head against his side. “I’m sure. Having another pair of eyes will help.”

He hummed. “More the merrier.” He didn’t really think she’d agree, but the terror in her eyes still surprised him.

“No, D— You can’t!”

Sighing, he knelt down to her level. “This is something the Company should know, kit.”

Frantically, she shook her head. “No, please—”

“They’ll understand—”

“Will they?” He started to answer, but she cut him off. “It took you a few minutes to come to terms with it— How long do you think it would take Thorin or the others?!” His words died in his throat. “Thorin would hear ‘dragon’ and cast me out, you know he would!”

“Kit…” He searched for a rebuttal, but none came; if there was one thing the King was, it was stubborn, especially when he’d set his mind on something. Otherwise, he would’ve given up on his distaste for Belda weeks before the Carrock.

As she saw that he understood her reasoning, she calmed slightly, though her voice still shook. “My First Shift isn’t ’til nearly October, anyway; until then, I’m just as I am now, so there’s no point in telling them. After that…” Swallowing, she blanched, but continued. “After that, maybe.” Grimacing, he began to shake his head, but she cut him off with a desperate, “Uhdad, please!”

He stilled, warmth filling his chest at the endearment, and pulled her into his arms as his eyes burned. For several moments, he couldn’t speak. He could barely even think. The only thoughts that weren’t crowded out by his heart were those of her. When he could think again, he sighed and drew back. “All right, Bunnelê. We’ll discuss it again when you come of age, but for now—”

With a delighted squeak, she cut him off as she embraced him again, and he just chuckled as he returned her hold.

The peaceful moment only lasted a few minutes, though. “Wait, when did you learn any Khuzdûl?”

He drew back as he spoke, so he saw her sheepish expression clearly enough to have to fight a groan. “Um…”

“Who taught you?” The real question was whether it was Fíli or Kíli.

“I don’t want to get him in trouble!” Kíli, then.

“Kit, the worst that’ll happen to the pup is that Thorin’ll keep him away from you more than he already does.”

Her brow furrowed. “Even after he kissed Fíli?”

“What?” It took him a moment to process her words. “Wait, Ori taught you?”

Blinking at him, she cocked her head to the side. “Who did you think I was talking about?”

He scoffed. “Kíli, of course.” A part of his mind had still thought she’d been shifting the blame to protect him, but the fact that she blushed scarlet as soon as he said his name eradicated that suspicion.

It also answered the question of whether she returned the pup’s feelings.

She sputtered for a moment. “No! No, O— You all speak Sindarin, and I do, and Ori doesn’t, so—”

“A trade.” Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lessons for lessons.”

“How did you…”

She trailed off as he laughed, and he cupped her cheek with one hand, pulling her close enough to bump their heads lightly together. “He might be quieter than a son of Fundin, but the Princeling-to-be is exactly like my brother as far as their bizarre need to know everything about everything.”

She snorted lightly. “Bit like cloud watching, is it?”

He grinned. “Just ‘cause I’m not a genius like all of you…” He poked her temple pointedly.

She batted his hand away, blushing. “I’m not a genius.” He snorted; she glared. “Da raised me to love reading, that’s all, and my mother,” she faltered, but continued, if a bit more dully than before, “she always taught me that knowledge was a tool like any other.” For an instant, he saw the grief she always hid, and the pain she’d begun letting slip over the last few days; before he could react, she shook off the malaise and smirked at him. “I had plenty of time to read in the last few years, though; there are a few of the books in Bag-End I could recite verbatim, I read them so many times. I even taught myself to read Sindarin.”

Putting aside his worries for another time, he smiled at her as he stood. “So when you saw an opportunity to learn another language, you jumped at it.”

“Exactly.” Her matter-of-fact tone left him chuckling, and he didn’t notice the shift in her mood until she stopped walking; he turned to see her biting her lip, eyes narrowed as she thought. “I need to talk to Gandalf.”

“Is something wrong?” And what could it be that she couldn’t talk to him about?

But she shook her head. “I made a promise, that’s all. It’s time I followed through, and I think I’ll need Gandalf’s help.”

“Not mine?” The question slipped out before he could stop it, and he regretted it as soon as she looked up at him, eyes wide.

“No, it— It’s something— I don’t know how to explain it. Gandalf will. And…” She bit her lip again, but nodded after a moment, sorrowfully. “I think it’s something you should hear with the rest of the Company.”

A twinge of heartache struck him, but he nodded as well. “If you’re sure.”

He turned to go, but hands on his arm pulled him partway ‘round again, and down far enough for her to kiss him on the cheek. Lowering down from her tiptoes, she smiled warmly. “I am, Uhdad. I’ll explain tonight, I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, fun fact, my original plan was for no one to find out she was a dragon until after Lake-Town, but then they met Beorn and Dwalin started thinking and I realized he was way too smart not to put it together. Not completely, of course, since he doesn't have all the information, but enough.  
> Notes: 1) Can you tell I have a soft spot for Vána? She's described as being connected to nature almost as much as her sister is, but she's also married to the literal patron of all hunters, so I figure she'd have to be a pretty complex character. Personally, my interpretation is 'supermodel mama-bear'. She's called 'The Fair', so she must have been beautiful even by the Valar's standards, but come on. You seriously think I'm going to let her be nothing but a pretty face? 2) 'Tauron' means 'Forester', so Hobbits would find that acceptable.  
> Uugghh, I've barely written at all for days. But I think I'll have a surprise for you the day after tomorrow. (^u^)  
> À demain!


	23. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories can be nightmares, too.

Belda toyed with her bead, nerves twisting her guts into knots. She’d split off from Dwalin as soon as the house came into view, and found Gandalf in a handful of minutes (during which she gave Ori a quick heads-up), and he’d agreed to help her. Everything was planned. Everything would be fine. It would be.

It had to be.

Part of her was still raw from her conversation with Dwalin; she’d been so convinced, for so long, that all it would take was that one sentence and she’d be reviled by her pack as much as she was by her kin, that how quickly he’d forgiven her was disorienting. And she was sure she’d never had a conversation that went in as many directions: one moment she was in agony, the next he was telling her that he wanted to adopt her, the next she was baring her soul to him along with her race’s secrets, then, instead of condemnation, he treated her exactly as he had before she told him.

She didn’t know whether to be relieved, wary, or ecstatic. She settled for exhausted.

But this was something else entirely. Ori’d practically had a heart attack when she told him, and that was before the Goblins, before the Carrock, before…

Her fingers twisted the bead around and around, the surprisingly-delicate ridges of it not yet familiar enough for her to picture. Would this change anything with Dwalin? In a sensible corner of her mind, she recognized that being a child by Dwarven standards wasn’t much compared with being the same sort of beast that slaughtered their people, but she couldn’t banish the worry. He was her father as much as her Da had been, though she couldn’t even think of calling him ‘Da’ without heartache stabbing through her; she loved him as dearly as she’d loved Bungo, but she couldn’t call him ‘Da’ without feeling as though she were erasing her Da, forgetting the man who’d raised her, loved her more than anyone else until Dwalin came along. If he were a Hobbit, she’d have called him ‘Stórfaðir’, but he wasn’t, and nothing in Westron sounded right, so she’d decided on the Khuzdûl equivalent, ‘Uhdad’.

‘Great-father’, to follow Beorn’s ‘great-cousin’.

She wasn’t quite sure what ‘Bunnelê’ meant, though. Well, she recognized the suffix, but she and Ori hadn’t had a chance to trade lessons in over a week, and they’d been sparse even before that. Maybe now that she was officially Dwalin’s daughter, she could get lessons more often?

Of course, that was assuming the Company didn’t barricade her inside Beorn’s house as soon as she told them.

Now, Beorn’s animals were just finishing the rather laborious task of setting out dinner, and the Company was all in the main room, and she and Gandalf were the only ones lurking at the edges. As if he’d heard her thoughts, the wizard pushed her lightly, giving her the option of falling flat on her face or stumbling into the main room; recognizing the manipulation for what it was, she glared darkly at him as soon as she had her footing, but the Company’s collective exclamation distracted her.

As quickly as they rushed towards her, Dwalin planted himself solidly in front of her, forestalling their questions. During the brief lull, her stomach growled again; the Company laughed as she hid her blush in Dwalin’s back, but they left her to eat in peace while Dwalin talked with them. She only paid cursory attention to the conversation; most of her focus was on the plates of food the animals brought her.

It was odd, though; every so often, she felt as though they expected something from her, but she had no idea what it could be, and no way to ask without the Company overhearing, especially as it was full dark by then. Fighting-prey or predator, shape-changers guarded their territory aggressively; she doubted anything could get anywhere near Beorn’s house without his permission, but that didn’t mean it would be safe. If he was going to go to the trouble of warning them, he had a reason.

But once she gave her plate to a helpful dog to be carried away once and for all, a _thud_ snapped her attention to Thorin, across from her. For a few seconds, he only held her eyes challengingly; then he smiled and lifted his mug to her. “I never would’ve thought it possible for anyone, let alone a member of another race, to be as stubborn as Dwalin, but well done, Belda, you’ve proven me wrong.” The Company roared at that, Dwalin included, but she still heard Thorin as he leaned forward. “There’s a reason I keep people who keep me humble around. You’re truly your father’s equal.”

Considering the speaker, it was the most effusive praise she could imagine; what felt like pure sunshine filled her veins, and she ducked her head to try and hide the beaming grin she couldn’t banish.

One by one, the Company added their congratulations: Fíli had to be flicked on the arm after a paragraph’s worth of gushing; Kíli just grinned at her, eyes shining and cheeks pink; Glóin went on for longer than Fíli, and had to be clonked over the head before he stopped; Bofur spoke for his brothers, simple congratulations but heartfelt all the same; Óin just nodded and drank to her; Dori said a few words about the importance of family, during which Nori made faces and any number of gestures, but she found a clearly formerly-Elf-made locket in her pocket at one point; she gave Nori an exasperated look, but the thief only winked at her; Ori wished her every happiness; Balin eyed her coolly for a moment, but smiled and welcomed her to the family all the same.

Finally, Gandalf smiled at her. “Your mother and father would be overjoyed, kit.” It was a struggle not to visibly react, but she succeeded well enough that the wizard continued, “Now, I believe our new daughter of Fundin has something she’d like to tell you all.”

The table looked to her expectantly; her heart stuttered in her chest. “Right, um…” How to say it? “Well, it’s just…” She’d had it all worked out, where did it go? Best to start simple. “It’s my birthday in a couple months, my coming of age.”

Kíli laughed. “Is that all? We already knew that!” Most of the Company nodded with him; one of her hands clenched in her jacket, the other twisted her bead.

“Well, you see… um…” Her words lodged in her throat; how would they react? After a moment, Gandalf tapped her on the head with his staff; she glared at him, but couldn’t deny that the interruption made it easier to think through a sentence or so. “It’s, um, it’s not my sixtieth birthday, Hobbits don’t come of age at sixty, I didn’t even know Dwarves do until Kíli’s birthday.”

Try as she might, she couldn’t force out the words; the Company exchanged worried glances. In the end, of course, Thorin was the one to ask, suspiciously. “…How old are you turning?”

Her hand fisted in her jacket; Dwalin pulled her a little closer; she took a deep breath and met Thorin’s eyes. “I’ll be thirty three.”

As with Ori, there was utter silence for a moment; Ori, she noticed, was doing an admirable job of pretending he had no idea what she was talking about.

Then the penny dropped.

 

Belda soaked in the sunlight, feeling as though it was the first time she’d breathed in months; for a moment, a stray thought, _‘years’_ , drifted through her mind, but she didn’t know why. She forgot quickly.

She looked to the side, somehow unsurprised to see three white wolves standing on top of Bag-End. They looked big enough to swallow Hobbiton in one gulp, but she knew they were warg-sized. She remembered that.

They leapt down in a blink, but not on her. _‘This isn’t right.’_

They leapt over her to land among the Company. She screamed, but all she could hear were their screams; the lead wolf bit Thorin; the world flickered, going between snow and fire, hills and a cliff, wolves and wargs, but she still screamed with her commander. Pain ignited in her torso, blood gushing out of the same wounds that Thorin bore; the wolf threw him and she felt the impact; Dwalin rushed toward her, his form flickering between a mountain of a Dwarf and a beaver of a Hobbit, but no matter how she screamed, he didn’t stop, he didn’t slow, and he didn’t see the wolf until it tore him apart.

Her vision blurred, and then she was at the window in her room. Kíli was on the other side, almost close enough to touch, and she pounded on the glass, but he only walked away. She turned just as Thorin closed the door, and she reached it just as the bolt slid home. She tried to beat at the door, but something was holding her; she couldn’t see it, couldn’t understand what it was, why it was warm, why it was moving—

A voice finally cut through the screaming in her ears, and once she noticed it, every blink made the familiar lines of Bag-End fade into shadow, replaced by a great-hall, huge and dark and empty, but with her father’s face over hers, as worried and afraid as his scent.

“D—Dwalin?” Even the one word burned her throat as much as speaking in the Goblin caves had; she’d spent too many years screaming herself hoarse not to recognize the feeling.

As soon as she spoke, Dwalin heaved out a shuddering breath and let go of her wrists to pull her into his arms; realizing that most of the Company was awake and watching, she burrowed her face into her Uhdad’s chest and focused on the reality around her, wishing desperately that she could wake up again and find out none of them had actually seen.

Soft, worried Khuzdûl surrounded her no matter how she tried to ignore it, none of it familiar; out in the open, or even in Rivendell, it might have helped her keep herself in the present, but the smell of wood surrounded her as much as the Khuzdûl, and every breath drew her mind back to Bag-End. Gradually, her heart slowed to match Dwalin’s, but her mind refused to do the same. It wasn’t until Dwalin’s hand covered hers that she realized she was fiddling with his jacket. “Kit, you’re safe.”

Unable to move her hands, her nervous energy moved to the rest of her, making it impossible for her to keep from fidgeting. A light tap on her arm nearly made her jump out of Dwalin’s lap; seeing the hurt on Kíli’s face, she wished she could take the reflex back, but he only pulled his hand back and cleared his throat. “Is there anything you need? Anything I can do?”

Her immediate, reflexive thought was to ask for a clock, a metronome, an adding machine, anything complicated enough to demand her full attention as she disassembled it and put it back together, anything delicate enough that she would have no choice but to still her hands and her mind alike. But she’d seen earlier, Beorn had nothing like that, and the Company didn’t, either, not with them. But she needed something, something finicky and familiar—

Her eyes darted to Ori where he was rubbing his eyes; pleadingly, she leaned closer to Kíli. “Can you ask Ori if I can borrow his journal? And a pencil?”

Kíli nodded; for an instant, he looked as though he’d hug her, or at least touch her arm again, but the instant passed and he stood. Unthinking, her eyes stayed on him as he moved to Ori, but the weight of ten sets of eyes pressed into her as soon as she remembered the Company’s presence; heat flooding her cheeks, she hid her face in Dwalin’s chest. Cradling her head, he growled something in Khuzdûl; the feeling of being watched didn’t leave, but when she glanced back, it was to see that none of them were looking at her.

Closing her eyes, she clenched her jaw against the realization that it was only in her head. But then, she shouldn’t have been surprised; she’d felt as though she were being watched when she was locked, alone, into a room with no windows. Why wouldn’t she feel the same when there were actually people to see her?

The journal moved into view beside her; as soon as she took it, Kíli began to move away, but froze when she snatched hold of his sleeve. She couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t think of a way to explain, but the only thing her mind could never conjure up was his scent. Having him beside her would help her keep herself in the present more than anything else could. That in mind, she moved off of Dwalin’s lap and tucked herself under Kíli’s arm, keeping hold of Dwalin’s arm, as well. Surprise and discomfort coursed through their scents, but she just focused on the paper.

One of the few luxuries Camellia and Longo had allowed her was a battered pocket watch, and she’d gotten into the habit early on of using it as a distraction the only way she could. She’d snuck other things in over the years, little household utilities that could plausibly just be lost, but she was most familiar with the clock. So, it was as easy as breathing to sketch it. As she drew, the last dregs of her nightmare fell away, and she forgot the Company, she forgot the quest, she forgot everything. All that mattered were the plans taking shape under her fingers, her father on one side, and her best friend on the other.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

Kíli glanced down and broke off mid-sentence to bite back a laugh when he saw that Belda was asleep. Gently, he pulled the journal out of her hands and set it on the floor; she started to move closer to him the same way she had a few nights before, but Dwalin gently tugged her toward him instead, and she latched onto him with a contented sigh.

Even as she did, though, she kept hold of Kíli’s free hand; he couldn’t quite bring himself to let go. With a start, he remembered who, exactly, she was leaning on. Stomach clenching, he could only think for a moment, _‘notcan’tdon’tmakeme let go’_. But Dwalin only glanced at him, chuckled quietly, and looked down at Belda again when she grumbled incoherently. Smiling, he ran his thumb over her cheek; she leaned into his hand, and Kíli chuckled with Dwalin.

It wasn’t long before she was deep asleep, more than deep enough for Kíli to move away without waking her, but despite knowing he had to, he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less. As he tried to gather enough resolve, he was surprised by Dwalin’s quiet voice. “Don’t hurt her.”

Startled, Kíli could only manage, “W— what?”

Dwalin met his eyes levelly; for a few moments, he only looked at him. “It’s obvious how you feel about her, pup.” Kíli flushed, but Dwalin didn’t give him a chance to speak. “It’s almost as obvious that she cares for you, as well.”

What felt like pure sunshine suffused him; he couldn’t help a hopeful grin. “You think so?”

Dwalin smothered a laugh and flicked Kíli’s arm. “Settle down, pup.” The familiar reproach cut through the giddy cloud enough that Kíli did subside, but he couldn’t have stopped smiling if he tried. “But take care.” Dwalin’s gaze pinned him in place; his smile weakened slowly. “Don’t get her hopes up, pup. If she’s your One, I won’t stand in your way, but unless you’re absolutely sure you want a future with her, don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep. You both might have fun now, but she’ll be twice as hurt later, and I won’t have that. Don’t lead her on.”

Soberly, Kíli nodded. “I swear, Dwalin.” His eyes fell to Belda again, and he smiled softly at how content she looked. A thought struck him, and he smiled. “You’re a good father.” Dwalin jolted just enough that Belda groaned near-inaudibly; Kíli bit his lip and nodded to her. “She thinks the world of you.”

Dwalin’s eyes looked a bit misty, but Kíli didn’t call attention to it.

Gently, he pulled his hand out of hers, mourning the loss of heat even as he did. “For what it’s worth, I would never hurt her. Not intentionally. I’d rather face Smaug alone and unarmed.”

An odd expression crossed Dwalin’s face, but he nodded. “I know. Good night.”

“Night.”

Settling into his bedroll by Fíli, Kíli couldn’t forget Dwalin’s words. Could he truly say that he wanted a future with her? No, that wasn’t the right question. He did want a future with her, but could it really happen? Assuming the quest went according to plan, assuming she got in and out of Erebor with the Arkenstone and without waking Smaug, if he wasn’t already dead, it would be months before they could mount any assault on the wyrm. It could be another year before everything settled down, or more. Would they feel the same in that long? He wanted to say yes, at least on his side, but unless she was his One, he couldn’t guarantee that.

But around her… He felt as though he were being pulled by a current, a riptide inexorably drawing him to her side, as natural as a Dwarf to stone, as effortless as gravity. Was that what it felt like to have a One? He’d have to ask Fíli in the morning.

He couldn’t imagine ever forgetting her. He could imagine falling in love with her. He half-scoffed. He was fairly sure he already was falling in love with her. Hearing her scream when they’d been running from Beorn had been more terrifying than being in danger himself, especially when Dwalin screamed, too. Every time he saw her unhappy, he just wanted to fix whatever was troubling her, and every time he saw her smile, the sight became his new favorite memory.

But she wasn’t a Dwarf. He didn’t care, but others would, other Dwarves who would be needed if they were to retake Erebor. She was officially Dwalin’s daughter now, but still. And she was only thirty-two. He felt queasy at the mere thought. Half Fíli’s age, and he was seriously thinking about a future with her. But she wasn’t a Dwarf. After the uproar had died down after dinner, she and Gandalf had both explained that Hobbits came formally of age at thirty-three; not just battle-ready, but legally adults. For all intents and purposes, she truly was his age. But she was young nonetheless.

Intellectually, he knew she wasn’t a child, knew she was nearly the fighter he was and would likely surpass him in another year or less, knew she was more than old enough to make such decisions for herself, just as he was. But every time he thought about just how young she was, he felt like a lecher for ever having looked at her mouth or her curves, or anything, really. For the remainder of the night, he swung from one view to the other.

 

The light danced and bloomed in the torches, sparks like fireflies going up, and up, and up, up, up—

A laugh came from beside him; Kíli blinked at the petite fig— figo— person for a long moment before recognizing Belda. “Bel’a!”

She laughed again, holding onto his arm as the world swayed around them. “You really need to stop talking about how much you like this place.”

She tugged him forward again; he felt near tears. “Bu’ it’s so beau’ful!”

“It’s Elven, Kíli!” Laughing, she pushed open a blurry door and pulled him into a blurrier room. “You’re a Dwarf; you’re meant to hate it!”

Frowning, he shook his head; the world wobbled enough to send him to the floor. “Can’ ha’e it, it’s b’utiful.” Giggling, she sat with her back to a couch to his right, perpen— perpa— at a right angle to him. He loved her laugh. “So’re you.”

A startled blush cut off her laugh, her smile fading, too. “Kíli?”

Distress pulsing with his blood, he tried to gently cup her cheek, but she wouldn’t stay still, and it took a few tries. “No, why’d y’stop smilin’? Lov’ y’r smile, it’s beau’ful like you.”

Gentle hands caught his as he tried to touch her hair, and even through the fog in his mind, he understood not to fight her as she pulled his hand away. “Kíli…”

“‘M sorry.” His heart ached, but he didn’t let himself rub his chest or wipe his eyes; he’d gone too far. Even if he didn’t quite understand what, exactly, he’d done.

But she shook her head, eyes shining sadly. “No, you— I—” Blinking rapidly, she took a deep breath. “I’m not angry with you, Kíli. It’s… it’s not the right time.”

Whatever part of Kíli’s mind knew he was dreaming remembered that on that night, he’d stared at her mutely until he understood her words, then gotten distracted with asking why she wasn’t as drunk as he was, when she’d matched him drink for drink. The topic had changed and they’d laughed at nothing until the Company returned and she went to bed; he’d endured more than his fair share of ribbing the next morning for being the first to retire from his own coming of age party, but Belda had seemed to assume that he didn’t remember their conversation, and so he hadn’t said anything about it, either.

But whatever part of Kíli’s mind that knew he was dreaming wasn’t nearly large enough to stop the dream there.

“It’s not the right time,” Belda repeated, looking down at her hands.

 _‘This isn’t what happened, this isn’t right.’_ But Kíli couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t use his abruptly-clear head for anything but to watch, horrified.

“Not the right time, and it never will be.” Against his will, Kíli’s eyes fell to her hands, sheer panic stabbing through him as he realized they were the hands of an old woman; she raised her head to look him in the eye, silver-white hair setting her clouded eyes to greater relief.

He wanted to yell, wanted to sob, wanted to cradle her face in his hands and wipe away her wrinkles as though time were no more implacable than rumbled fabric, but he couldn’t move. He didn’t need to to know that if he could see himself, he’d look no different than ever. That he wasn’t yet in his middle years while she was ancient.

That she’d grow old, and leave him behind.

That she could spend the rest of her life with him, but he couldn’t spend the rest of his with her.

That to think otherwise, to hope, would be foolish.

He was a fool.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Fíli scanned the drawing again. It was at least the fifth time she’d looked at it since Glóin had handed it to her over breakfast, but she was still no closer to properly understanding it than the first.

She’d never seen such a complicated diagram, such a complicated device, and had so little idea of what it was for. Belda had apparently disappeared before most of the Company woke, though she’d evidently convinced Dwalin not to worry too much.

Kíli was no more concerned.

As she thought of him, Fíli stared suspiciously at her brother. He was being strange. The day before, he’d been practically vibrating with his worry over Belda, despite knowing she was with Dwalin. Now, there was no knowing where she was, she was almost certainly alone and unarmed, and he was hunched over his arrows like they were all that mattered in the world.

Thorin stood and stalked out, but she paid him little mind. A few dark glares cleared the room of everyone but the children of Dís, and she sat across from Kíli, glaring at him as well.

After a few moments, she saw his eyes flick up, toward her, but he kept his head down and focused again on the new arrows he was fletching. She huffed. “Really, you’re ignoring me?”

He shifted self-consciously in his seat, but didn’t react otherwise.

She waited until he finished the arrow in his hands before kicking him. “Stop being an idiot and talk to me.”

He glared mutely at her. She was a little impressed; he looked very much like Thorin.

“It’s obviously something to do with Belda, so talk. Is it something to do with her age?”

He blanched; Fíli softened somewhat. The revelation of just how young she was had been a shock to everyone, but given her and Kíli’s relationship, it wasn’t a surprise that he would take it harder.

For Fíli’s part, she only had to remember that Belda could probably kill half of them before the other half even noticed anything was wrong, if she wanted.

But there really wasn’t anything she could say, or at least think to say. There was no fixing this, only adjusting and moving on.

That in mind, she lowered her voice sympathetically. “I know how hard this must be, but you really should talk to her. You saw her last night— she was terrified to tell us, and she’s probably still afraid we’ll treat her differently because of it.”

A low, harsh breath left him. “How can we not? She’s a child—”

“You heard her and Gandalf, same as me,” Fíli hissed. “She might have half the number of years I do, but she’s the same age as you. She’s not a Dwarf, she’s an adult for a Hobbit—”

She stopped mid-sentence, realizing his expression had darkened further.

Slowly, she understood. “…She’s an adult for a Hobbit, because they barely live longer than Men.” He flinched violently, half the arrows on his lap clattering to the ground. Remorse filling her, Fíli helped him pick them up again. “I'm sorry, Kee, I didn’t think—”

Glowering, he pulled the arrows from her hands. “No, you didn’t.”

He sat again, facing away from her. She only watched him for a handful of minutes, leaving him to his brooding. Finally, his motions slowed to a stop, and she murmured, “Would you really rather spend decades regretting staying away from her?”

He tensed, but said nothing, and she continued. “I know it isn’t the same… but until a few days ago, I was convinced I would have to say goodbye to Ori after the Quest and I would never see him again. When I realized how deeply I was beginning to care for him, I thought about staying away. I decided I’d rather have memories of what-could-have-been than regret not spending what time I could with him. You and I… we probably have a full two centuries in front of us. I knew months ago that I’d probably outlive Ori. You don’t have the benefit of ‘probably’, but still. Our lives are so long compared with Men, and even compared with other Dwarves. But we have the luxury of choice, compared with other Dwarves. We can choose safety, or we can risk our hearts for the sake of happiness. In the end, I suppose, all we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us.”

As she was about to turn and go, he let loose a shuddering breath. Silently, she sat beside him; when he spoke, it was quietly enough that she never would have heard him from anywhere else. “But when misery is inevitable—”

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” Kíli inhaled sharply; Fíli blinked away the blur as she looked at him. “You remember how many times Amad’s said that was Adad’s favorite saying? You’re jumping at shadows, Kee. Talk to her. She has to know what the difference between you means. So talk to her. Figure out what it changes, if it changes anything. Figure out if you can go forward anyway.”

“What’s forward except—“

“Years of happiness, for all you know. Or maybe you’ll have a decade and then you’ll get killed in some stupid accident and she’ll be the one burying you. Or you’ll have a full century, until she’s as old as her grandfather, and you’ll have a century’s worth of happiness to help you make it through the rest. You don’t know. No one does. No one can.

“But you know that you’d be happy with her. I know you too well to think that you’d be half this conflicted if you didn’t at least care for her, even if you don’t love her yet. You could be happy together. Do you really care for her so little that you could turn away from her now?”

For long minutes, they only sat beside each other and listened to the movements outside.

“…When… Before you knew Ori was your One… were you drawn to him?”

Blinking, Fíli considered the question for a few moments. “I’m not sure ‘drawn’ is the right word. Attracted, though. I could barely keep my eyes off him, and I haven’t gone a day without thinking about him since the first time I saw him. You remember— he chopped off his beard right out in the open and announced he wouldn’t grow it back until the Quest was complete and Erebor was ours again.”

Kíli snorted lightly. “Well, he certainly has the Durin melodrama.”

She grinned, but looked at him curiously after a moment. “So are you ‘drawn’ to Belda?”

Sighing, he nodded once. “Like Thorin is to Erebor. Even if I was determined to stay away, I’m not sure I could, not seeing her every day.”

Inwardly cheering at the tacit admission that he’d changed his mind, Fíli prompted gently, “So be friends with her. Maybe more is impossible, but you can at least be her friend.”

A tired smile pulling at his lips, he sighed and nodded again. His glance to her held all the love in the world, and Fíli leaned over to touch her forehead to his. After a moment, they both drew back, and he asked, ‘casually’, “Where is Belda, anyway?”

Struggling not to laugh at his transparency, Fíli shrugged. “I think Thorin went to talk to her. You can ask him when he gets back, if she isn’t back by then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of you guessed what the reveal would be, but I think I probably did surprise you a little. (^u^)  
> Notes: 1) Don't be too happy about Thorin's immediate acceptance of this. His alcohol tolerance is only slightly better than Kíli's. 2) It really doesn't come up much (so far), but Belda's a total gearhead. She and Winry would get along great. Some of it's because she didn't have many options for hobbies, but she'd be fascinated by that stuff anyway. 3) Kíli is a literal puppy, fight me. 4) Remember how I just skipped over Kíli's coming of age party in Rivendell? Hope you enjoy this little flashback of it, 'cause I'm probably never going to write the full thing. (I probably will write another drunk!Kíli scene, though, because he can*not* hold his liquor.) 5) This is actually another of the sections I got stuck on for forever. I just couldn't figure out how to deal with the morning after until I decided to just skip to after Fíli's already been looking at the plans rather than start with her seeing them for the first time. 6) Fíli's line about 'the time given to us' is a slightly reworded Tolkien quote. 7) 'Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens' is a direct Tolkien quote, because it's way too awesome to reword in the slightest.  
> Anyone wondering where Thorin was going before Fíli went to talk to Kíli? You should be.  
> À demain!


	24. Thorin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> None of the Durins know how to emotion. It runs in the family.

Thorin scowled. Nori had been able to give him the rough direction Belda had gone, but she’d apparently gone into a rukhsul field of tall grass. He could barely see over it; she was small enough to be completely invisible.

Shaking his head, he turned to go; this was impossible. As he did, the wind shifted, and he stilled as a voice drifted to him. Cautiously, he moved toward it, the words becoming discernible after a few moments:

_…e stars I’ll greet you_

_There beneath the stars I'll leave you_

_Before you go of your own free will_

 

_Go gently_

 

[ _Underneath the stars_ ](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/underneath-the-stars/213510097?i=213514471) _you met me_

_Underneath the stars you left me_

_I wonder if the stars regret me_

_At least you'll go of your own free will_

 

_Go gently_

 

_Here beneath the stars I'm landing_

_And here beneath the stars not ending_

_Why on earth am I pretending?_

_I'm here again, the stars befriending_

_They come and go of their own free will_

 

_Go gently_

_Go gently_

 

_Underneath the stars you met me_

_And Underneath the stars you left me_

_I wonder if the stars regret me_

_I'm sure they'd like me if they only met me_

_They come and go of their own free will_

 

_Go gently_

_Go gently_

_Go gently._

 

Her voice was contralto, which he hadn’t expected, and slightly hoarse; he guessed this wasn’t the first song she’d sung. The middle of the third verse had sounded almost bitter, but the last verse had been thoroughly miserable. He’d found her at the beginning of the last verse, but had felt as though it would be cruel to interrupt, so he’d just watched her.

She was lying flat on her back in the grass, red-rimmed eyes fixed on the sky—though he’d thought she glanced at him at one point—and limbs splayed out in a way that reminded him of Kíli. He could just see her through the grass, and there was still a thin layer between them—not enough to hide her, but enough to preserve the illusion that he wasn’t intruding on her privacy.

A few moments of silence passed; he had no idea what to say.

“My father wrote that.” He startled slightly; she didn’t seem to notice. “Well, most of it.” A few tears spilled over her cheeks, though her expression didn’t change in the slightest. “I added a verse. I was just committing it to memory.”

He still didn’t know what to say.

After a few moments, she sniffled. “I had a dream last night,” she winced, “after I got back to sleep.” A bitter, teary laugh escaped her, and she screwed her face up. “It wasn’t even a nightmare, just a dream. Just a memory.”

She sounded as though she were about to cry. Should he go get Dwalin? There was a reason he and Fíli didn’t speak of such things. But as she continued, he realized she didn’t—as far as he could tell—want him to say a word. She only wanted him to listen.

“But I just—how didn’t I see it then?”

Slowly, he sat, keeping the grass between them as the illusion of a barrier, the illusion of privacy. He could leave. He could leave her to her tears and send Dwalin her way, but he had badly misjudged her before. He still didn’t understand her. So if she wanted to confide in him, did he have the right to refuse?

When she didn’t continue at first, he prompted quietly, “See what?”

Sniffling, she took a shuddering breath. “She’s the stars.” He didn’t have the nerve or the time to ask who ‘she’ was. “My father never minded—he loved her no matter what she did—but I—no, I didn’t mind either, then, but—”

A half-sob cut her words short, and she was silent for a few seconds. For lack of any other ideas, Thorin laid down, still with the grass between them, but close enough that he could hear her struggling to steady her breath.

“She used to say that my father was the only pack she needed. She told him she loved him after every sentence. ‘Pass the potatoes, love’. ‘The book I was looking for, I love you’. ‘It’s been a whole hour since I said I love you’.”

There was birdsong in the field, not quite loud enough to drown out her eventual next words.

“How do you come to terms with the fact that the person who was supposed to love you more than anything never did?”

He almost said something at that, but she cut him off, voice thick.

“It’s not a point of debate. You didn’t know her.” He heard a faint rustling, and guessed that she was shaking her head. “She loved my father so much she shone with it. When she was home, which wasn’t often, it was easy to see that every moment she spent with him was a treasure. I just didn’t realize until recently that every moment with me was an obligation.” She scoffed wetly. “You know, I can’t remember a year she spent more than four months in the Shire, altogether? And that was only the one time, and I can’t remember why—it was when I was tiny. The rest of the time, it was just Da and me ten months out of a year, or more.

“And he loved me. I’ve never doubted that, never will doubt it. He made sure I knew I was loved… and I guess now I know why. You know, I think the only times I was truly, properly alone before the Fell Winter were when she was home and she and Da holed up together for a few days or a week? And then there’d be a couple weeks where Da made sure to include me at meals and in the library, so it was the three of us. And then there’d be a couple days, four at most, when she would spend time with just me. And most of that was playing games like Hide-and-Track or learning to throw or something else that let her stay at least ten yards away from me for most of it.”

What she was describing went against everything Thorin knew. He didn’t want to believe it, but if she was telling the truth—and her tears certainly gave her words credence—then she was right. Dwarves didn’t believe in coddling their children, of course, but what she was describing went past ‘strict’ and well into ‘neglectful’. But surely she would have prioritized her daughter if there’d ever been an emergency?

He said as much, and received a harsh, barking laugh in answer. She was starting to sound more and more like Dwalin.

“Fíli never told you we match, then? Our scars, that is.” Furrowing his brow, Thorin searched his memory for any of Fíli’s scars that Belda could possibly have in common with her. “I haven’t asked Dwalin yet, did the Fell Winter reach Ered Luin? It was twelve years ago. Almost twelve.” On the last sentence, her voice fell until it was nearly inaudible, and barely loudened again as she went quaveringly on. “It was my fault. We’d heard the howling, but—but with the blizzards—I couldn’t remember the last time I saw the sun—breathed fresh air—and I couldn’t—” Her voice gave out. It was nearly a minute before she continued, every other word cracking.

Long enough for dread to begin twisting Thorin’s guts into a knot.

“I begged to go outside, just for a minute— and they must have been as desperate as I was or they never would’ve agreed. They never should’ve agreed. But we went out, and I could breathe for the first time in weeks—or it could’ve been months, for all I know—and then I turned around and there were wolves on the roof, and one jumped— jumped at me, and I— I tried to get out of the way but it still caught my arm— and I could— couldn’t get away before it grabbed me—bit me—”

Slowly, Thorin realized she’d never meant that she shared scars with Fíli. His still-healing wounds ached, and any words he might have said died in his throat, choked by horror.

“And Da— Da screamed,” she sounded a hair’s breadth away from sobbing, voice a reedy, shaking thing, “and the wolf—it must have thrown me—I don’t remember, but it was holding me and then I was yards away, in the snow— and I saw— I saw—” A gulping hiccough interrupted her; somehow, she didn’t break down entirely, but it took long minutes before she continued.

Thorin still couldn’t speak.

“He ran. Hobbits run away, not ones like me and my mother, but ones like Da, they run away, but he didn’t, he was running— he was running to me. He didn’t care about the wolf, he didn’t— but it caught him, and he screamed, and my mother screamed.” She hissed the word the same way she had before; Thorin tried not to think of how Dís had screamed when he told her they’d found Sídri. “And she ran to him—ran to save him—but another wolf grabbed her, and— and she screamed after Da stopped. I could still hear her when I ran.”

There was another rustle as she sniffled.

“I could still hear them for months. I don’t remember being found, I just remember— one second I was running, the next I was waking up in a room I’d never seen, covered in bandages, and there was sunlight outside. The Fell Winter only lasted a few weeks after my parents died, but I was stuck in it for months. But my Da— he ran to save me. My mother didn’t. She ran to save him. And—” She gave another harsh, half-sobbing laugh. “And the worst of it is, I can’t hold that against her. There was nothing she could have done against those wolves—they were as big to us as wargs are to you—and staying back was the smart thing to do, the thing she would have told me to do—that she did teach me to do—but I still—”

She broke off with what sounded suspiciously like a true sob, and before Thorin knew what he was saying, he’d blurted, “My grandfather never saw more in me than the beads in my hair.”

Immediately after he’d said it, he clamped his lips shut. He didn’t know why he’d said it at all, let alone to her.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. Of anyone in the Company who didn’t already know, she was the first he’d tell willingly. She was the only one who would understand. But even so, he hadn’t known that until just now, and for all he knew, she was making it all up, and—

“Did…” She sniffled. “Did he ever teach you things, and when you did it right, look at you like you were the best thing in the world to him?”

Only a handful of times that he could remember, but… “Yes. Before the gold-sickness worsened.”

He half-expected her to ask what on Arda he was talking about, but instead she murmured, “And then when you did it wrong—because you were a child—look at you like you were nothing?”

He sighed, but felt a tiny weight lift off of him with his answer. “Yes.” He hoped that was a less angry expression on a Hobbit than it was on a Dwarf, but even so. Looking sidelong at the grass that separated them, he turned his head just slightly toward her. “I was twenty-four when Smaug came. I was outside the mountain, with Dwalin and a few others, and all I could do was watch my home burn.”

A tiny rustle. “Most of the Fell Winter was unending blizzards. We had to dog-pile in the pantry just to keep from freezing to death.”

“I was forty-seven when my grandfather led us to war against the Orcs. Fifty-three when I saw my grandfather, grandmother, and brother die in the final battle.”

“My mother was in shreds the last time I saw her. I only saw my Da’s arm, lying on the snow a little ways from the wolves.”

“My father went mad after the battle that took most of my family. He disappeared when I was a little over a hundred, and I was made King.”

“According to my relatives, I was rabid-slash-feral-slash-insane for the better part of six months after the Winter. That’s why they got custody, because I couldn’t recognize that the Winter had ended, let alone that one of my cousins was trying to talk to me.”

“I’ve never spent more than eight months out of a year with my family, and mostly closer to half a year. I had to travel, to find work to support them, but it was also hard to stay penned in anywhere, after wandering was the only reason I survived Smaug.”

“My cousins once locked me into my room for three weeks while they visited with friends. I hadn’t figured out how to pick locks then, so by the time they got back, I’d nearly starved to death.”

“When we fled Erebor, even my grandfather’s madness wasn’t enough to make him think going to the Elves wasn’t the right decision. But they denied us any aid. We lost the most people then, to hunger and sickness.”

“The last time my mother went to Rivendell was fifteen years ago, when I was eighteen, but she never even told Elrond she had any children.”

“On our way to Ered Luin, we didn’t even consider going to Rivendell for aid. Now I’m afraid our pride cost more of my people their lives.”

“My Da told me horror stories about when an army of terrifying, vicious Dwarves passed through the Shire generations ago. No one was brave enough to ask them what they wanted or needed.”

“I’d heard of land available in what used to be Arnor, but I was too proud to consider settling my people anywhere but in a Dwarven mountain.”

“I could have run from my family ages ago. I was too scared to go off on my own.”

“I should’ve begun this Quest years ago, but if Gandalf hadn’t brought the key and the map to me, I probably would’ve died with it still unfulfilled.”

They went on, for how long Thorin wasn’t sure. They laid in the grass and looked at the sky and spoke with hardly enough volume to be heard over the birdsong and rustling of plants in the breeze. On and on, until Thorin simultaneously felt as though he’d float away with how much he’d unburdened himself, and that he’d crumple under the weight of her burdens.

There were no tears, after all those near-misses, and no rages. Only an unspoken agreement to neither offer sympathy nor ask questions, only to listen. And the more Thorin listened, the more he realized what a fool he’d been to treat her as he had. He’d thought her a defenseless child at first, then a naïve, sheltered child, and instead—

Instead, he thought that if they’d met just after Azanulbizar, it would have been like looking into a mirror, for all that she was female, and a Hobbit. He’d had over a century to shut away his pain, to hide it, to deny it. She’d had no time at all. He’d thought there was such a chasm between them, that she could never understand the suffering he, and his people, had endured.

On the Carrock, he’d told her that he’d never been so wrong in all his life. Now, he knew that he could repeat himself without the slightest insincerity.

Some time later, when the sky above them was just beginning to darken, they stood and made their way out of the field. Emerging into the open air again was strange, as though he’d lost his armor, but he still called her to a stop.

“Belda. I owe you an apology.” She started to shake her head, but he held up a hand. “No, I do. The way I’ve treated you has been unforgivable, and if you want—”

“The only thing I want,” she interrupted quickly, “is to be treated like any other member of the Company, like anyone else who signed that contract.”

Looking at her, he didn’t doubt she meant it. Slowly, he nodded. “Then I can grant you that.”

 

* * *

 

Kíli

 

Kíli could barely stay still as he scanned the horizon for the tenth time in as many minutes. Thorin had been gone most of the day, Belda the entire day, and it was nearly dusk.

He needed to see her. He needed to talk to her. Fíli was right, it was stupid to do anything drastic without talking to her, and maybe she knew something he didn’t. Maybe there was something she hadn’t said the day before.

Two dark shapes came into view on the horizon, and Kíli’s heart gave a lurch. He took a half-step forward—

—and stopped. Thorin would assume he was there to speak to him, and explaining would be more of a delay, and awkward to boot. Thinking quickly, he ducked back, flattening himself against the wall to the side of the door. Fíli caught his eye from across the room; discreetly, he flashed their Iglishmêk sign for Thorin at her, then the sign for time.

Her brows raised; she flashed a ‘B’ at him.

He nodded.

She smirked and raised her brows at him; he flushed, and she grinned.

But as soon as Kíli heard booted footsteps on the wood outside the door, Fíli called Thorin over, pointing out some new detail in Belda’s diagram.

Thorin went with a small, amused huff, and Kíli caught Belda’s arm as she came in behind Thorin. For a long moment, he only looked into her eyes. She glanced at Thorin, then outside, then raised her brows at Kíli.

Smiling as he realized it was no harder to understand her than it was Fíli, he nodded, and they slipped out the door and a ways to the side. Dusk was beginning to fall, but it wasn’t long past midsummer. They had close to an hour before full dark, he guessed.

Hopefully, that would be enough time.

…Or it would be if he could think of a thing to say.

After a few moments, she scratched the back of her head, looking to the side. “I assume you didn’t want to discuss the watch plans?”

His brow furrowed; frowning, she pulled a few blades of grass out of her hair and lifted her other hand to the search. “Watch?” Out of the corner of his eye, Kíli saw lightning bugs the size of his thumb fly toward them, but all they did was orbit him and Belda, giving them a bit more light.

“Pocket watch.” That didn’t help in the slightest, but she quirked a brow at him with a teasing half-smile. “I think we’re getting off topic.”

Drawing in a deep breath, he nodded. “We are.”

But he couldn’t bring himself to continue. A touch to his hand startled him into jumping; Belda shifted closer to him, looking sympathetically up at him while she took his other hand, as well. They touched each other fairly often, but skin to skin contact was something else entirely; he might have expected it to lessen the pull he felt toward her, but if anything, it strengthened it.

And loosened his tongue. “I don’t know what to do.”

She released a quiet, unsurprised breath. “Because I’m half your age.”

Pain lanced through him again at the words. Dropping his eyes to her hands, he murmured, “Because I’ll outlive you. I’m not—I’m not strong enough.” A broken laugh escaped before he could stop it. “How can you even look at me? At any of us? Knowing—”

He couldn’t finish the thought. But she squeezed his hands, the coolness of her skin soothing some of his agitation. “Knowing you’ll all go on without me. Because… I know what it means to lose everyone I love.” She smiled, but her eyes were welling up; for the first time, he realized they were already red-rimmed. “Maybe that makes me selfish, but I can’t live for however many years I have left without letting myself love anyone else. I can’t go back to being alone.”

“You’ll never be alone.” He’d spoken before he thought, but he couldn’t do anything but repeat himself, fighting the urge to lift a hand to her face. If he allowed himself that, he wasn’t sure what else he’d do. “You will never be alone, not as long as it’s in my power to change that.”

Her smile widened, though a few tears fell as she ducked her head. She was standing close enough to him that the position meant that she nearly had her head leaning against his chest, and his heart gave a wistful jump. “But I can’t ask that of you. I know how much of a shock this is—believe me, I know—so I won’t hold you to that. Not yet.”

As she raised her head again, he had to remind himself moving closer would be a bad idea. “If things were different—”

“We wouldn’t be in this mess?”

He had to laugh at that, and she nearly did, as well, grinning widely. His laughter faded slowly, and as he looked at her, the more sensible parts of his mind fell silent. Even grass-stained and teary, she was perfect. The only thing he would change if he could was her lifespan. And as the less-sensible parts of his mind loudened, it grew harder to remember why he shouldn’t—

Before he could change his mind, he cupped her cheek and kissed her. For an instant, she was stiff against him, before her free hand slipped around his neck and she kissed him back.

He’d seen people kissing, he knew there was more to it than this, but for the moment, the simple, quiet contact was almost more than he could bear. After an eternity, he broke it and leaned his forehead against hers. He was still holding her other hand, and he squeezed it gently.

“After the Quest,” he promised. “After all of this is over—”

“We’ll talk.” She nodded without breaking their contact. “I won’t ask more of you yet. I can’t. If you still want this after the Quest, we’ll talk.”

He closed his eyes against the pain of that ‘if’.

Could he? Should he? In that order, yes and no. But he made his decision, and took his hand away from her cheek in order to reach into his pocket; with his other hand, he turned hers over and opened it. Opening his eyes, he laid the rune stone resolutely in her palm. In his hands, it was barely three finger widths wide, and less than two across. In hers, it spanned her palm, and easily covered it from the base of fingers to the level of her thumb. The yellow-green blinks of light brought out the green in the polished surface of the stone, the combination almost managing to be the same shade as her eyes.

“This is a rune stone. The inscription reads ‘return to me’. We used to think stones like this were good luck, but now we know that’s only superstition.” Gently, he closed her fingers over it as he spoke, covering her hand with both of his. “Now we know they aren’t luck, they’re promises. Reminders.”

He’d drawn away a fraction as he gave her the stone, and now leaned in again, still holding her wide eyes. “My mother gave me that when Fee and I left Ered Luin, to remind me of the promise I made to come back to her.” Belda’s eyes widened further, and he cupped her cheek again. “Which is the same promise I make to you now. The same promise I know I don’t need to ask of you, because if you aren’t going to do everything in your power to be able to give that stone back to me after the Quest is over, I don’t know you at all. After the Quest, I will come and talk to you, and we’ll figure out where to go from here. I don’t—”

He stopped, frustrated with how difficult it was to find the words. “I don’t mean for this to be a bit of fun. I can see us—” A flood of images overwhelmed him, of the two of them in Erebor, exchanging vows, raising children together, making a life together. He couldn’t find the words for a single one.

She stretched up, probably standing on her toes, to press her forehead against his for [a weighty moment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16654291). Dropping down again, she set her hand on his, the cool, small weight of it more comforting than anything he could think of. “After the Quest.”

Sighing, he wished he could kiss her again. “After the Quest.”

Slowly, she drew back, seeming as reluctant to move away from him as he was from her, and tucked the stone deep into one of her pockets. “You should go in first. Thorin will be looking for you.”

He nodded, but it took a few moments for him to actually do as she suggested. The pull towards her was stronger than ever; if he could have, he would’ve caught her up in his arms and never left her side until she was wearing his bead, but she was right. Thorin would be looking for him, and besides, they’d only agreed to discuss courting, not anything more. The time would come to speak of such things, he felt it in his bones, but now now. Not yet.

* * *

 

Nori

 

Nori glanced at the door as movement caught her eye and hid a smirk as Kíli crept in. To his credit, his efforts at going unnoticed lasted until he was halfway to the other side of the room and were easily passed off by Fíli as his coming back from there, not going there. As Thorin pulled Kíli into an ongoing argument between him and Glóin, the siblings exchanged a few glances.

Nori interpreted what she saw as:

An expectant look from Fíli: _So…? What happened?_

A sudden blush from Kíli: _It— uh, it w— went well._

A sudden coughing fit from Fíli, which Nori almost joined: _HA! YES!_

Before Nori could see Kíli's response—if there was one—motion caught her eye from the door again. To Belda's credit, she was actually somewhat skilled at hiding in plain sight, and if Nori hadn’t had over a century of experience on the girl, she might have lost track of her.Just as unobtrusively, Nori made her way over to the kitten-burglar, pulling a couple coins from a pocket.

“So as I was saying,” she answered Belda’s surprised confusion with a quick wink, “when you lift a single coin, you roll it into your palm, like I showed you earlier.” Not that she had showed her earlier. She rolled the coin over her knuckles once, then back, then demonstrated how to combine it with a lift. “Now let’s see how much you’ve been practicing.”

She flipped a coin to the kitten, who caught it with the deftness of a born thief. Giving Nori an unamused glare, she rolled the coin slowly over her knuckles; she lost it at the end of the first roll, but it was better than Nori would have expected for a first try.

As she heard a few of the Company notice Belda was there, Nori quietly praised, “Good, you’re doing well. Just keep at it slowly, you’ll get there.”

Belda blinked at her, something odd in her expression, but Bofur, Bifur, and Ori swarmed them before she could say a word.

Smirking as they pulled the bantith into an interrogation, Nori retreated to the edge of the room again, where she could see the full room. After a few moments, Dwalin began moving towards her; her stomach gave a half-hopeful, half-dreading flip. In the days since the cliffs, she’d only seen more and more of the gentleness that had led her to recognize him before everything in Goblin-Town, and—despite how she fought it—she was beginning to care for him. It didn’t help that he’d been more civil to her, either.

It was obvious that he meant to speak to her, so she didn’t question it when he leaned against the wall beside her, only nodded slightly to him in greeting.

In his typical fashion, he cut straight to the point. “You and Belda have been on the outs since the Carrock. Why?”

Glancing at the kitten in question, Nori mused, “Shouldn’t you be asking her that?”

Looking pointedly at the crowd around her, he answered dryly, “I’m going to, but generally it’s easier to get her alone than you.”

“Without being obvious, you mean.”

“Aye.” He turned back to look at Nori. “So what did you do?”

Nori didn’t bother to protest the accusation; the bantith was too good to start a fight for no reason and they all knew it. Still, it took her a long moment to gather the courage to answer truthfully. It might have been easier if she could have lied, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to. Not when she’d seen how much he loved Belda. “You know how selfless she is.”

He grunted an affirmation.

“On the cliff…” Nori lowered her voice a bit more, fighting a swell of something she refused to call guilt; she hadn’t done anything wrong, after all. “I told her to save herself instead of Thorin.”

Despite the feeling absolutely not being guilt, the words were ash on her tongue; she had to bite back bile. Contemplative, Dwalin mused, “She wouldn’t have taken that well, but I can’t see her being this upset if it were only that.”

Stomach churning, Nori lowered her eyes.

“…What?”

She flinched; he sounded as suspicious as he ever did in Ered Luin. She hadn’t heard that tone in weeks; it hurt more than she might have expected. But more than that, she thought of Belda’s look just before the others had swarmed a minute earlier. The odd look in her eyes… as though she’d never imagined Nori praising her, though she’d said something similar just days earlier, just before they’d fallen into the Goblins’ hands. That, as much as anything else, gave Nori the courage to speak her worry aloud. “…When… when I said it, her first response was ‘I am not my mother’.”

Part of why Nori had remembered the exact wording was the abruptness of it; they hadn’t been speaking of anything close to her mother, so why had that been her first thought? But Dwalin let loose a long, slow exhale as though he understood perfectly. “…Now that… that I can see her still being upset about.”

Nori squinted at him. “What’s so terrible about being like her mother?”

The rage that pooled in his eyes made Nori’s blood chill; she was only glad it wasn’t directed at her. “From what I’ve gathered,” he growled, “Azog has more humanity than that woman ever did.”

Nori couldn’t help but gape at that; if she knew anything about Dwalin, it was that he would never say such a thing lightly.

He pushed off from the wall, heading toward Belda, but stopped after only a couple paces. For a moment, he seemed to dither, then half-turned back toward Nori. “For what it’s worth, I’d never trust that woman with Belda, but… if I had to choose someone to protect her… you wouldn’t be my last choice.”

From anyone else, about anything else, the statement would be virtually meaningless. From Dwalin, about the daughter he loved so much, it was enough to make Nori feel as though she were filled with molten gold. He turned and walked away a moment later, but it took several seconds more for Nori to banish her smile.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Dwalin forced himself to turn away from Nori again, but even once he was standing beside Belda, listening to her explain the diagram she’d drawn up so long ago, half his mind was still on Nori and the way he’d looked in that last moment.

In the Goblin Caves, just before they’d made it out, he’d noticed something odd about his face—not in that it had changed, not that there was something wrong with it, but as though he were seeing a different side than he was used to. When the thief’s face was unguarded—when he was half-unconscious from falling to the bottom of a shaft or when he’d smiled just now—there was something almost…

No, that was ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous. Dwalin immediately resolved to put the matter out of his mind.

But he found himself tossing and turning that night, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, DUUUUNNNN. Totally obvious what Dwalin's trying not to figure out, isn't it? Well, if it is, then at least you won't be in complete suspense until Monday. (^u^)  
> Notes: 1) 'Rukhsul' means 'orcish'. 2) Has anyone else seen that meme of Aragorn sitting next to a grassy field with the caption 'I never should have taken Hobbits into tall grass' or something like that? 3) Link to the song in the second verse. Go check it out, it's really cool! 4) 'Bantith' means 'kitten'. (^u^)  
> À Lundi!


	25. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, Beorn.

“Fountain pens.”

“What, the pen has a fountain in it?”

“Never mind. Adding machines.”

“Adding what?”

“Adding machin—oh, you must be joking! Printing presses.”

“What?”

“Printing presses! Rows of stamps with letters on them, for mass-printing!”

“Printing what?”

Belda’s eye twitched as she stared at Glóin. “BOOKS!” Fortunately for Glóin, Gandalf walked in before she could strangle any of the oblivious Company. “Gandalf, they don’t even know what printing presses are— tell me the rest of Middle-Earth isn’t like this!”

She looked at him pleadingly, hoping beyond hope that he would assure her that the wider world wasn’t stuck in the Wandering Days.

He did not.

“On the contrary, my dear, I’ve never seen such advanced technology outside of the Shire.”

Her eye was twitching again.

He was laughing at her internally, she could smell it. “I’ve been rather impressed by how well you’ve gotten by without it, to be honest.”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” Flailing somewhat, she waved at the Dwarves in general. “They’re meant to be the smiths of Arda! How did we invent things first?! How didn’t they invent things as simple as knitting machines?!”

Ori puffed up somewhat. “Knitting and crafting should be something to take pride in, not sloughed off like dross!”

She waved him off distractedly. “Hand-knit things are leagues better than machine-knit, obviously, but not everyone has the time or energy to make everything by hand.”

Just as she opened her mouth to repeat her question to Gandalf, he gestured magnanimously to her. “And there you have your answer. Dwarves place too high a value on hard work and expertise to undermine it by creating shortcuts; Elves, on tradition; Men have the ingenuity, but war among themselves too frequently to have sufficient prosperity; leaving Hobbits as the only race with the time, motivation, plenty, and creativity needed for invention.”

Thorin grumbled, “What motivation could they have for putting their weavers out of work?”

Belda rolled her eyes; their conversation the previous day had been something like lancing an infected wound, draining both the burden of her memories and her lingering fear of her commander. For the first time, he’d actually treated her like an equal, and now…

Now she was realizing he was a right pain in the neck at times.

More civilly than she would have at the moment, Gandalf answered, “More than anything else in the world, Hobbits value food and cheer and song. The more quickly their work can be done—and the less they need worry about such things as protecting and clothing their children—the more time they have to relax and laugh.”

“It’s not a matter of laughing,” she snapped. “It’s a matter of security! It’s a matter of knowing that if we have glasses, we don’t have to be afraid of getting old— If we have windows and barometers, we don’t have to be afraid of storms— If we have cotton gins and spinning frames and carding machines, and yes, knitting machines, we don’t need to hole up in winter like we used to! And most of all, it’s a matter of knowing that we don’t need the wider world, we’re fine on our own, and for the most part, we are!”

Even a day earlier, speaking as loudly and for as long would have left her hoarse, but she was recovering quickly; the last aches were gone from her back, as well.

Dori spread his hands placatingly; condescendingly, Belda would have said. “We don’t mean any offense, lass. But you have to see that things like this, all cold and clever and… and cunning, they’re a bit like Goblin things, aren’t they?”

Between the (unintentional) reference to her mother and the (blatantly intentional) implication that Hobbits were in any way like those monsters, Belda’s pride flared up. “So what? Only Dwarves can be clever? Only Men can be cunning? Only Elves can be cold? What can Hobbits be, then? Weak, silly, fragile, gentle? Besides, those Goblins felt as strong as Dwarves to me, and the Orcs were as tall as any Tall Folk. Why shouldn’t Hobbits be as capable as anyone else, if we put our minds to it?”

Dori began to speak again; Nori hissed something in Khuzdûl too accented and low for her to make out. Before anyone else could speak, a booming laugh filled the hall; Belda spun around, grinning broadly.

“Just so, little bunny!" Grin shrinking, he switched to Hobbitish. "But do you know why Goblins are nearly as clever as Hobbits?”

Belda’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”

He nodded slowly, eyes soft, and returned to Westron. “I think it’s time you and I talked, bunny.”

“What do you have to say that you can’t say here?” Even while Nori’s sharp suspicion sent a spike of territorial anger through Belda, part of her was almost touched at the concern she knew was behind it.

As Belda turned to look at her, Dwalin caught her eye; his brow was furrowed, expression as concerned as Nori’s, but he held her gaze pointedly. Silently, she nodded once; he took a deep breath, but nodded back and deliberately relaxed. Turning her eyes to Nori, she stood from the table as she reassured her, “He’s no threat, Nori. I’ll be back later.”

Nori still didn’t look satisfied, but said nothing more. She did, however, glare at Beorn as he passed her; he chuckled. “You’re hardly the most threatening woman I’ve faced, Dwarf.”

Before he’d even finished, Belda half-shrieked, “Beorn!” He turned to look at her, brow furrowed, but she could only gape at him. Shaking her head, she looked to Nori, trying to find something—anything—to say. But nothing—no apologies, no excuses, not the slightest word—came forward.

As shocked murmurs began to ripple through the Company, Nori shook her head, a bit pale. “Go on, kitten. You’ve got your business, I’ve got mine.”

As much as she wanted to stay and try to help fix the situation, she knew that there wasn’t much she could do except get shouted at for keeping the secret. And, too, Beorn’s implications and comments drew her; he knew something about Hobbits she didn’t, and probably knew more about shape changers than half the Hobbits in the Shire.

Glancing apologetically one last time at Nori, she slipped outside with Beorn, leaving her pack to sort themselves out.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Dwalin couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. He could barely even think. All he could do was stare at the thief—the woman—at Nori as he— as she turned to face the Company again.

In the Goblin Caves, just the night before, he’d thought that there was something off about the thief’s looks, something not-quite-right, something… well, something non-masculine.

The night before, he’d barely slept, trying to avoid the thought that now turned out to be true, that the thief he was beginning to respect wasn’t a ‘he’ at all. It was almost as though he’d known, as though…

As the Company broke out of their collective stupor and began yelling questions, no one noticed him staring, awe-struck, at his One. For more than a century, he’d been chasing her, and somehow he’d never realized, never noticed—

But as he looked at her, saw more and more of ‘her’ rather than ‘him’, he realized, he had noticed. Not all at once, not even enough to really remember, but over the years, he’d noticed enough to put it together, if he’d actually ever thought about it, which he hadn’t. If anything, he’d avoided thinking about it, unwilling to humor the idea that he could be wrong about something so basic.

Against his will, his eyes fell to her lips, but he wrenched them quickly away again. Fíli and Ori had been each other’s Ones, but there was no guarantee that Nori was his. Even if she were, they had so much history that there was no guarantee that they would work, together.

But they had been working well together so far on the Quest—

But were a few months of not being at each other’s throats enough to make up for how long they had been?

He avoided her for the rest of the day, busying himself with running drills or trying to come up with a plan for when they left with Thorin. As the sun lowered to the horizon, a figure came into view, a much, much smaller figure growing visible beside Beorn as they neared the house.

Slowing his drills to a stop, Dwalin watched them approach, the accented syllables of their language reaching him for a few moments before they came to an agreement of some sort or other.

Beorn nodded to him in passing, but continued to the house; Belda, however, shook her head when Dwalin started to walk her way. Once she was close enough, she tugged him down to the ground and curled up in his lap, staring at the stars as they came into view; he was only too happy to go along with it, and did his best to find a position that would be comfortable for them both.

“Something wrong, kit?”

“I feel like an entire library was just crammed into my head.”

His worry evaporated with a huff and a grin; he remembered Balin saying much the same more than once in his apprentice days. “You two talked about shape-shifter things, then?”

“Some.” After a few moments, she added lightly, “He’s hundreds of years old, you know. Half-Elven. Well, part-Elven; he said it was his great-great-grandmother who was the last full Elf in his family. But his grandfather remembered Hobbits.”

Dwalin frowned. “Did he live near the Shire?”

For several long moments, she didn’t say a word. Then, after nodding once, absently, she answered, “We lived near here.”

His brows shot up. “Before the Wandering Days?” She hummed. Exhaling slowly, he stared out at the horizon, trying to wrap his mind around it. “This isn’t far from Moria. That we could have lived so near each other and never met—”

“We did.” He looked sharply at her; she didn’t look away from the stars. “The story you told me, about Durin and the woman Yavanna brought to his city, I already knew it. I didn’t know any of the Stone-Borns’ names, and I didn’t know why they weren’t there when the Giver brought the Hobbits to his city, and I never even considered that the Stone-Born could have been making overtures the entire time that the Hobbits just didn’t understand, but—”

“Stop, s—” Dwalin’s head was reeling. “You’re telling me that Hobbits have a story about Durin’s wife?”

She blinked at him. “Not just his. There were six Hobbits, remember? The Rabbit-Hobbit married Durin, the fighting-prey Hobbit married the older of the apprentices, and the predator-Hobbit married the younger.” Her cheeks reddened abruptly, and she looked away from him again. “Your version doesn’t say anything about their being shape-shifters, of course, but I suppose if the Stone-Born really loved their wives, they’d keep it out of written record.”

“The…”

After furrowing her brow at him for a moment, she patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. “It was a shock to me, too. But it does confirm what Beorn told me today: Hobbits lived all through the Valley of Anduin, and kept their existence secret from everyone but Dwarves for Ages.”

Slowly, he worked through his shock enough to frown. “But why would we have forgotten so completely about you?”

Her expression crumpled; as mournfully as any descendant of Erebor, she recited, _”Remember the tale/ of the one who chose wrong/ who trusted and loved/ a wicked Stone-Born/ the Stone-Born lied/ and the Stone-Born betrayed/ and the Hobbit went weeping/ all the way to the grave.”_ Grimacing apologetically, she elaborated, “It’s part of a longer song, about a Stone-Born who seduced a Hobbit and then sold the knowledge of us to Orcs. One of the last verses says that the Thain of the Stone-Born—although that was probably the King—swore to make it right. In the song, it’s presented as just a last ploy to get our trust back so we could be used again, but now I’m wondering if the way he made it right was to make sure that none of his people would be able to betray us again.”

“By removing all trace of you from our history,” he finished; she nodded. “When did this happen?”

“Either at the very end of the First Age or the beginning of the Second Age; Thranduil and his father came to the Greenwood around the year 750 of the Second Age, and I know they never knew about us.” He gave her a look, to which she shrugged. “My mother brought history books back from Rivendell. I figured out a rough timeline for how our histories fit into everyone else’s a while ago. But my best guess is that it was in the first few centuries of the Second Age, when people still remembered Sauron’s power, but after they’d forgotten to fear him.”

Thinking over their own histories, Dwalin nodded slowly. “A good number of Dwarves emigrated to Khazad-dûm in the first century. There would have been children born within a few decades who only had stories of Melkor and Sauron.”

“Who might have thought his power was something they could take advantage of.”

For a few moments, they sat in comfortable silence.

“Everything could have been completely different if we hadn’t forgotten you.”

Rubbing her eyes, she smiled. “If we’d been a bit less paranoid.”

“If one of us hadn’t gotten greedy.”

“If we’d believed the King when he swore to make it right.”

He chuckled mirthlessly, and watched the sun slip past the horizon. “So was that what you two talked about? History?”

“Yes and no.”

He raised a brow at her, but her eyes were closed, brow creased with thought. “I understand if you can’t tell me, kit.”

Immediately, she shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just… I don’t know where to start.”

He glanced at the horizon again. “Well, I’d say ‘take your time’, but I think we’ll have to go in in a few minutes, or face Beorn’s wrath.” On the last few words, he chased his fingers up her stomach, pleased to find out she was at least somewhat ticklish.

She pushed his hand away, but her smile lasted longer than her laughter. “I’ll just have to make it quick, then. Beorn’s family knew where the written histories we left behind were, and they’ve been keeping them safe for us since we left. That’s what he was showing me today, where he keeps the books. But they included records of dragons, the first dragons.” Starry-eyed in more ways than one, she finished, “Ones like me.”

His brows rose. “Hobbit-dragons?”

But she shook her head. “No, full dragons, good dragons. They were Vána and Oromë’s, made to be guardians of the fauna of Arda like Ents were for trees. They helped protect Arda during the Years of the Trees, before everyone woke up.”

But that left more questions than answers. “But then why doesn’t anyone remember them? Why wouldn’t someone have seen them? Dwarves, I could maybe understand leaving them out of our histories, but Elves?”

Face falling, she dropped her eyes to the trees. “No, by the time the Elves woke up, there weren’t many dragons left. They’d been fighting Melkor the entire time, holding him back, but they were only flesh and blood. Once he figured out how to corrupt them like he did Orcs and Goblins, the drakes and wyrms fought the dragons and killed them off.”

He couldn’t help a slight, disbelieving noise; if the first dragons had had the same instinct for fighting that she did, he wasn’t sure he could believe that they would all be killed off, just like that.

She smiled wanly up at him. “He gave them fire, and armor to resist it. Dragons like me weren’t built to fight, they were built to guide and guard. Fire and fur, not a good combination.”

The last sentence almost seemed to be an afterthought, and her brow furrowed as her eyes fell. Dwalin chucked her lightly under the chin. “What’s really the matter, kit?”

She leaned into him, but it was a long few moments before she spoke. “They were guardians.” Trembling faintly, she shook her head. “Beorn says that’s why animals just trust me, even wargs and things, because dragons were made to be the protectors of animals, and that’s why Hobbits and Goblins are scared of me, because Hobbits were some of the people who animals needed protecting from.” Her trembling worsened, and he didn’t hesitate to hold her more tightly. “I thought the Vald was enough of a burden, but this… I don’t… I’m not strong enough. I can’t…”

Cradling her to him, he cupped the back of her head and shushed her softly. “It’s all right, kit. You aren’t alone.”

Mutely, she burrowed into his chest, clutching at his jacket. There were no tears, no sobs, just those hopeless tremors.

And she still hadn’t really answered his question. Though he wondered… “What does ‘soul-form’ mean? Do you choose it, or is it chosen for you? And is your soul-form a reflection of who you are, or an expectation?”

She was silent long enough that he was beginning to get a gnawing feeling he’d misstepped badly. Just as he was about to change the subject, she mumbled something into his furs.

He frowned. “Couldn’t understand a word of that, kit.”

She squirmed for another few seconds, but did raise her voice just enough to be intelligible. “We don’t know for sure, but probably a reflection.”

Gently, he squeezed her. “Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

“But if it’s true, that means I’m not just responsible for the Company, I’m responsible for practically everyone!” Her eyes were wide and shining, cheeks flushed as she practically hyperventilated, and Dwalin deliberately cupped her face between his hands; following an instinct he hadn’t previously been aware of, he pressed gently, but firmly, at the nape of her neck with the pads of his fingers. Almost immediately, her breathing calmed and her trembling eased.

Tucking that away for a later conversation, he looked her in the eye as he spoke. “Eru is responsible for everyone. Everyone else only has to worry about a handful, in comparison. Do you truly think that Eru would ask more of you than you were capable of?”

He waited for an answer. After a few moments, she gave a single, shy shake of her head.

“No matter the weight on your shoulders, it’s not so dire as you think. Eru will answer your prayers, and it’s not as though you have to face it alone, kit. You might be responsible for us, but we aren’t exactly helpless. And I can’t speak for the entire Company, but I can tell you absolutely that you’ll always have me to help you bear it, and probably your Prince, too.”

Her cheeks colored hotly enough that he could feel the heat, and he laughed as she lowered her eyes.

“Just tell me, kit, please, he’s doing this properly? He’s not said anything untoward or asked anything more than is right?”

If anything, her blush intensified, but the corners of her mouth twitched as she mumbled, “We’re going to talk about it again after the Quest is over; he gave me a token for now.”

The way her voice softened into what he could only call ‘bashful sugar’ on the last half-sentence was completely adorable; even knowing she wasn’t looking at him, he had to turn away from her for a long moment before he could compose himself. Somehow, he didn’t think she’d appreciate being cooed over.

Of course, he’d forgotten how she could guess what everyone was thinking; when he looked at her again, it was to see her glaring sullenly at him through an even-more-vivid blush. Seeing that, he almost lost the battle against his mirth, but managed to keep some semblance of self-control. “Good, should— inside?”

Her glare sharpened, but she only pitched forward into his chest and nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dwalin ships it. Everyone ships it. Except Thorin, because he's a grumpy-pants who has a lot on his mind.  
> Notes: 1) Given the clothing/clocks/various amenities we see in the Shire, I personally have them as about mid-Victorian as far as technology goes. Seriously, we don't see Dwarves with pocket-watches, but Hobbits have them? Plus actual-glass glasses (instead of crystal), panes of glass for windows, actual plumbing-- well, okay, the Dwarves aren't surprised by the plumbing, so Hobbits probably aren't the only ones with that, but I mean, come on! Indoor toilets weren't invented until like 1851, and Hobbits have them?! They have to be the most technologically advanced race in Middle-Earth! And my reasoning for that is in Gandalf's little summary. It only makes sense (to me, at least). But Belda's reaction? Pretty much mine when I realized the level of tech needed to make the stuff we see in the Shire. I may or may not write a story where it's a major plot point, but for this one, it's just background. And basic rule of thumb? If it involves time, fabric, farming, or comfort (and it was invented before/during the mid-1800s), Hobbits probably have it. If it involves travel or warfare, they definitely don't. So no bicycles, no cars, no parasols, no guns, you get the picture.  
> But yeah, the design in the movie draws fairly clear lines between the geo-temporal settings of Middle-Earth, where the further East the Fellowship goes, the more archaic the clothes/tech they see is. Thematically, it's fantastic. Realistically, it means that Bilbo, Frodo, and all the other Hobbits would be going out of their mind every time they left the Shire, just like Belda is at the beginning of this chapter.  
> (Personally, I think that if Hobbits hadn't had to leave Anduin and start over, they could've easily been to solar power by the late Third Age; Shire-Hobbits had to start from scratch and after not even fourteen-hundred years, they're up to clockwork. I may or may not be planning a story where they're not driven out of Anduin until like T.A. 2900 and immediately introduce Middle-Earth to the wonders of telegraphs and electricity.)  
> Also, my headcanon is that the reason Goblins and Orcs are so different in the movies is that Orcs are corrupted Men/Elves, and Goblins are corrupted Dwarves/Hobbits, which is why Orcs seem as stuck in the Middle Ages as Rivendell/Rohan/Gondor/Mirkwood/etc, and Goblins have neat little devices. (Also, in the book, Tolkien mentions that Goblins are very, very clever when it comes to weapons of war and pain and death, and we all know Hobbits are the cleverest race in Middle-Earth.)  
> Back to the notes! 2) 'Vald' means 'power/authority', and in this context, it means her ability to command the Company in an emergency.   
> Next chapter might not be interesting for those of you who don't like headcanons, but I have put way too much thought into my alternate history of Middle-Earth to not share it with all of you. Besides, there's some important stuff in there, too.  
> À demain!


	26. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exposition and Introspection. (And Headcanons.)

As he had the previous day, Beorn lowered her most of the way down to the floor; once she was as low as he could reach, she squeezed his thumb and released her grip at the same moment he did, landing on the wooden floor with barely a wince. A week earlier, the same landing would have been agony, but she’d healed enough that her leg only gave a half-hearted twinge.

As she moved out of the way for Beorn, she stroked her thumb over the side of her left hand; the cut there was still painful, and hadn’t yet healed to the point that she could go without bandages. But another week would be enough for her to comfortably hold a blade if she needed to, and she doubted she’d need to, anyway, with her non-dominant hand.

Her ear was another matter entirely. Just thinking about it was enough to make it throb painfully; she waved off Beorn’s concern as he frowned at her wince. They’d decided on the plan for the day the previous afternoon, and he lit a torch and handed it to her without a word. Smiling up at him, she made her way to the small archway at one end of the room and ducked quickly through.

She’d looked over every inch of the library the previous day, but Beorn and all his family had always been too large to fit through the archway, so he could only guess at what was inside. That they could fit into the library at all was surprising, but his great-grandfather’s journal dated back more than two thousand years, so it wasn’t entirely unreasonable that the ancient Hobbits could have been on good enough terms with Beorn’s family to make certain that the entrance was large enough.

But beyond it was a mystery to him.

Raising the torch above her head, Belda crept forward, listening intently. Her eyes had already changed past what they’d been in the Goblin caves, but she still did need a bit of light to see at all, and more than a bit to see clearly. More frustrating was how the bandage on her ear muffled her hearing.

It hadn’t gotten any less painful to change the bandage. Óin thought that the infection was gone now, but it was still healing more slowly than she wanted it to. She wanted the bandage off, obviously, and she wanted to be able to hear with both ears again, but mostly…

Mostly, she just wanted to be able to feel the damage. Beorn didn’t have any mirrors, and there was no still water around his house, and his plates and things were all ceramic, not metal, and none of the Company had weapons large and polished enough to reflect as well as she wanted them to, and even if she found mirrors in here, she probably wouldn’t even be able to take off the bandages without passing out, let alone put them back on.

She knew that it was bad, and she’d guessed—based on Óin’s ‘father, daughter’ comment, mostly—that there was a bite taken out of it, but was it a sliver? A chunk? A big chunk? Or had she misunderstood, and there was no real damage at all?

As much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, she was afraid to ask, afraid of what the answer would be. She wanted to see it for herself, or if she couldn’t see it, feel it— to be able to so much as tap her ear without feeling as though she’d been stabbed.

Shaking her head clear of the pointless musings, she stopped at the edge of what sounded like a much, much larger space than the corridor she’d been creeping through, and listened. Long minutes later, once she was satisfied nothing was lurking in the darkness, she stood and moved forward, only to nearly jump out of her skin as a shape revealed itself in the darkness.

But it didn’t move. Frowning, she moved closer, huffing out a laugh to see that it was only a statue. Except…

It was a Dwarf. Curious, she circled it several times, inspecting every detail. The style of tunic he wore wasn’t familiar, but he had dual axes like Dwalin, and a beard like Glóin’s. His eyes, though… They reminded her of Kíli’s. She was far from unbiased, but she thought the Dwarf looked like the kind to be as passionate in his happiness as he was in everything else, and the delicate laugh lines at the corner of his eyes seemed to confirm that much, at least. He was tall, Thorin’s height, at least, and he had no beads, but he did have a hammer in one hand and a pickaxe in the other.

With a final, cursory glance, she made to move on, but stopped when she realized there were engravings under his feet. She’d felt the difference in the floor, but had assumed that the gentle rises and falls around his sides and back had just been accumulated dust and litter, but as she crouched down, she saw that there were the careful lines of a mountain range on his left and a forest on his right, and that the range extended behind him. Just before him was a small hollow, with tiny ridges on its flat base that she thought indicated it was meant to be a pool or a lake of some sort. The smooth, flat stone she stood on was a distinct path, now that she looked, and gently curved to the right as it extended into the darkness. Another statue was just visible from where she stood, and she moved closer once she was satisfied she’d seen everything there was to see about the first.

The second statue was the same Dwarf as the first, but with his clothing carefully carved to be more travel worn than his other representation; his eyes had a few more lines, from frowns, she thought. He stood in the midst of the forest, the mountains several inches away from him, and his tools had been switched: the hammer and pickaxe were in holsters on his back, the axes in his hands. A quick trip back to the first statue confirmed that the second’s hair was slightly longer, as well.

The third statue wasn’t alone. He stood with his hammer and chisel tucked under one arm and a beautifully intricate carving in his hands, while eight other Dwarves—it took her a few minutes to realize that four of them were women—faced away from him in a semi-circle. The eight statues formed a flip-book sort of movement, with the first figure positioning a hammer on a chunk of raw stone in his hand, the next beginning to raise her hammer, and so on, until the last woman struck the stone, the moment of impact depicted so that Belda could almost see the cracks spreading from the hammer.

All nine stood along another mountain range, a solitary peak a foot or so behind them, with a river leading down from it, and forests going back farther than she was willing to venture from the path just now. The eight Dwarves all had deep, determined frowns as they worked—though none of them were as intricately detailed as the lone Dwarf—but the lone Dwarf almost looked sad. The way he was posed almost made Belda think he was trying to show them what he’d made and they weren’t interested. But what was truly interesting was that while none of them—not one—wore beads, now even the lone Dwarf wore a heavy-looking chest plate with a large crest on it. The eight Dwarves were paired off, one man and one woman to each crest, and the lone Dwarf was, well, alone.

A suspicion was beginning to nag at her, but she didn’t give it any credence until the fourth set of statues. The lone Dwarf was in the center of a semi-circle again, but this time, the six Dwarves surrounding him—a young Dwarf, an adult man, an adult woman, another man, another woman, and another young Dwarf—were facing him, expressions clearly showing that they were impressed with his work. All seven figures wore large smiles, but if she wasn’t just seeing what she wanted to see, the lone Dwarf almost had tears in his eyes.

But she couldn’t deny it any longer. One, lone Dwarf, wandering Arda, when all the other Dwarves were shown in pairs, and now there were two younger Dwarves oohing and ahhing at what he’d accomplished?

He was Durin.

The Lone Stone-Born, and here were his apprentices, as they were being apprenticed to him. That in mind, she inspected the young Dwarves more carefully than she did their parents. The one on Durin’s right—as detailed as Durin—was broad, with his hair tied practically back; his face reminded her of Ori, somehow. Looking at him, she realized female Dwarves truly did look different from their brothers and fathers; if the figure had been a woman, he’d have looked a bit like Fíli, but as it was, he was far too masculine.

How women with beards and enough muscles to break bones with their bare hands could look feminine was still beyond Belda, but evidently her eyes had figured it out, even if her conscious mind hadn’t quite caught up yet.

The young one on Durin’s left, though, looked like Kíli. He had more of a beard than Kíli, and he wasn’t as broad-shouldered, and his arms weren’t half as big and strong, but he had Kíli’s smile, and Kíli’s eyes, and Kíli’s excitement. He was as detailed as Durin and the other apprentice, and she had to shake her head to rid herself of a stupid grin.

All seven figures stood along another mountain range, with the sea behind them and the forest ahead, for the inch or so before the pathway interrupted the carvings. None of the other Dwarves had weapons on them, but they did have tools, and the trios (father, mother, son) shared a crest each.

Based on the first four sets of statues, she really should have guessed what the fifth would be, but somehow she was still surprised to find a ten-foot-tall [woman](https://www.deviantart.com/kimberly80/art/Of-Aule-and-Yavanna-450697730) standing in a crowd of Hobbits. The statue was tall enough that Belda had to raise the torch as high as she could reach to make out her face beyond a shadowy blur. Belda had never seen Yavanna, and she doubted whoever had carved this had seen her, either, but still, she looked like Belda had imagined her. Soft, kind, with a hint of naïveté that reminded Belda of some of her Baggins cousins.

The nice ones, anyway.

The crowd of Hobbits, overall, was indistinct, but six figures, the six women sitting closest to Yavanna’s skirts, were at least as detailed as Durin and the apprentices. It wasn’t hard to tell which were which: one had the same sharp glint in her eyes that Belda had always seen in her mother and now saw in Nori; two had the same determined, stubborn set of their jaws as her Da had always had; three of them were wide-eyed and afraid, but with the same optimistic naïveté as the Giver. All of the Hobbits wore clothes that barely resembled what Hobbits wore now, as ancient as what the Dwarves were wearing, but with the same general style that Hobbits still preferred.

The next set had two of the fleeing-prey and one fighting-prey sitting together, the two frailer women with their heads on the other’s shoulders, and the other three figures standing in a semi-circle in front of them, with the predator on the right and facing out, the fighting-prey on the left and looking back at the other three, and the rabbit-Hobbit in the center, looking up.

Belda looked over the three in the front one at a time.

The fighting-prey woman was a tad shorter than Belda, more stocky, and wore practical, if loose clothing. She wore a concerned frown as she looked at the other three, but her expression didn’t seem to indicate that she was uneasy in the mountain—as the carvings under their feet clearly showed that they were in Durin’s city—only that she was watching for any sign that they needed her help.

The rabbit-Hobbit was even shorter, more delicate. The angle that her face was at meant that Belda could meet her eyes if she stood directly in front of her. Belda looked at her for a few minutes longer than the others. So this was the woman who was the Mate of—according to Dwalin—the first and oldest and wisest of the Dwarves. Belda had grown up hearing that story, grown up wondering how someone as meek as a rabbit-Hobbit could be the Mate of a man who’d roam Arda for decades—or, now she knew, possibly centuries—in search of her, who would carve a home and a city and a haven out of solid rock simply because he needed to to accomplish what he was after.

Distantly, Belda wondered: if she were a fleeing- or even fighting-prey instead of a predator, would she have been drawn to Thorin instead of Kíli?

A full-body grimace shuddered through her almost as soon as she’d thought it; that was too disturbing to even consider.

Belda moved on to the predator before she could think anything as horrible as that again. This third figure was the only one as tall as her, though if she wasn’t mistaken, she was a bit taller than Belda. All of the Hobbit-statues had far curlier hair than modern Hobbits, but the predator was the only one Belda’d seen who had it cropped almost to her skull. It looked wonderfully light and practical, and for a moment, Belda considered the idea.

She discarded it almost as quickly. Leaving aside how much her pack would weep and wail and be generally overbearing, she enjoyed how it felt when Dwalin braided her hair too much to chop it off. Maybe in a few years. Although the braids were as good for keeping her hair out of the way as cutting it would be. She’d think about it.

But Belda had expected to see her mother in the predator’s face. She’d expected to see cunning and callousness and coldness. Instead, she saw life. The rabbit-Hobbit looked awed, and pleased, but mostly awed, but the predator looked gleeful. She looked like Belda felt to imagine a life in Erebor where she didn’t have to hide. She was grinning as though life was a game, but Belda knew the story, knew that the predator had taken her duty as _rándýr-verndari_ as seriously as Belda took hers. Belda didn’t see her mother in the predator’s face.

Belda saw herself.

The next set of statues depicted the moments of each pair of Mate’s meeting: the predator and her Dwarf grinned flirtatiously at each other, hands brushing as he gave her something (Kíli’s token seemed to pulse in Belda’s pocket; she moved on to the next pair quickly, cheeks burning); the fighting-prey had her brows raised challengingly as she and her Dwarf talked, but she was leaning toward him just as much as he was leaning toward her, and she was holding back a smile as he gesticulated; the rabbit-Hobbit’s eyes were wide, lips slightly parted as she looked up at Durin, but if anything, he looked more awestruck than she did.

The next few sets of statues—the curve of the path bent further in, and Belda realized she was nearing the center of a spiral when she saw the first statue of Durin a dozen paces past one of the sets—showed the progression over the months, as the predator grew more and more disappointed as the grinning Dwarf presented various trinkets for her (his grin grew more and more strained as she didn’t acknowledge what Belda now realized were probably courting gifts); the fighting-prey and her Dwarf didn’t get closer, but they didn’t drift apart, either (both of them seemed slightly more despairing with each set); the rabbit-Hobbit and Durin, however, drifted closer and closer together, until one set had her sitting under his arm like Belda had with Kíli in Rivendell, both holding one side of a map of the mountain as they pointed to one room in particular.

Finally, the next showed the moment they’d all realized: the Kíli-Dwarf chased a coyotl, laughing; the Ori-Dwarf had a wolverine curled up in his lap; Durin was crouching on the balls of his feet, watching a small rabbit with a soft smile on his face. A few steps further down the path took Belda to the events of a few moments later: the Kíli-Dwarf tripped over the predator as she laughed; the fighting-prey woman looped her arms contentedly around the Ori-Dwarf’s neck as he pressed his forehead against hers; Durin laid flat on his back, laughing with the rabbit-Hobbit as she braced herself on his chest.

She would have expected that to be the end of the history lesson, but to her surprise, the statues continued. She didn’t examine them as thoroughly as the first, aware that she’d been wandering in the dark for at least an hour already. But before her eyes, the three pairs of Mates grew closer (then the Hobbits grew), then fauntlings joined the adults, then grew into tweens. It was strange, though: the fauntlings were all distinctly individual, it wasn’t hard to tell them apart, but as they entered their tweens, some of them grew into adult Hobbits, but others grew into Dwarves. The histories she’d learned had said that the children of the Hobbits and the Stone-Born were one or the other, not a mix, but they’d never said anything about the children starting as Hobbits and ending up Stone-Born.

When she retraced her steps and followed the Dwarven children backwards, she realized that even as fauntlings, there were small signs—rounder ears, lankier builds—to indicate that they weren’t quite like their siblings, but so subtle that it was impossible to guess without already knowing to look.

Almost as strange was when the Dwarven ‘children’ began having children of their own, and all the female Dwarves bore larger, Dwarven babies, some of which—if they had Hobbit fathers—grew more slowly than their siblings and eventually proved to be fauntlings, not whatever Dwarven children were called.

She made a mental note to ask Dwalin about that when she saw him.

It made sense, though, in a way. Dwarven babies were big enough that they’d probably kill a Hobbit woman who tried to birth them, and Hobbit babies were so delicate that there was no telling what might happen to them while they grew.

Also, she didn’t know if there were differences in what Hobbit and Dwarf babies drank when they nursed, but that wasn’t something she was in a hurry to ask anyone.

All things considered, it was probably for the best that the babies matched their mother until they grew up a bit.

But just as fascinating was watching the styles of marking change. The Dwarves constantly made and wore heavy, gem-ridden pieces of jewelry, but Belda could tell just by looking at them that they were too heavy for Hobbits; the Hobbits seemed to agree, as none of them ever wore them. The crests that had taken up entire chest-plates moved to arm-guards, then necklaces, then earrings, then finally beads, and only then did the Hobbits begin wearing their spouses’ and families’ crests.

If the Hobbits had still had hair like the first predator, curly like no one Belda had ever seen, even the beads might not have worked, as more of the Hobbits might have cropped their hair like her, but the successive generations took both parents’ features, whether they were Hobbit or Dwarf. The Dwarves’ hair got (slightly) curlier and much more wild, and the Hobbits’ got wavier and thicker, until finally it looked much like Belda’s own. Still far curlier than any of the Dwarves, but more like what Belda knew, and at least as well-suited to beads as Dwarven hair.

(The older generations, including the first three, grew their hair to their shoulders; there were a few rare braids, but mostly, they kept their hair in odd, ropy strands that Belda had never seen before. She thought she preferred braids, but the locks held beads as well as braids did.)

The curving pathway finally spiraled to an end with a single statue, of Durin, holding his wife’s bead and crown in his hands as he knelt. When Belda bent down, she lost her balance to see the sheer grief in his expression.

For long moments, she couldn’t look away. It wasn’t the grief that held her, or not completely. It was that even in his sorrow, he still looked like Kíli. Looking at him, it was so, so easy to imagine Kíli in his place, holding her beads after she died and left him alone.

Not for the first time, she felt guilt twist her stomach into knots; how could she ever have the right to do that to him? How could she live with herself knowing that he would have to lose her?

Closing her eyes, she reminded herself: she trusted Kíli, he was intelligent enough to make that choice for himself, he would make that choice for himself, and neither of them had actually done or decided anything permanent yet. Besides which, everyone knew that Hobbit lifespans were affected by what their soul-form was: her grandfather had been a tortoise, and look at him. More than a century and a quarter before he died. And tortoises could live for a few centuries, sometimes.

According to Beorn, dragons could live for millennia. Even if she only had a fraction of that longevity in her Hobbit form, she could still very well grow old with him.

Maybe.

She hoped.

Steeling herself against the sight of Durin as she opened her eyes, she pushed to her feet and ducked through the statues to the way she’d come in; the walk was only half a minute’s worth that way, but just as she reached the archway, she realized there was something on the wall beside it.

Walking along the wall with her torch held high, she grinned to see another of the stories she’d been raised with on display: the creation of Hobbits. From Yavanna shaping them from rain and soil and sunlight, to Vána and Oromë finding them, to the first Hobbits beginning to build a life for themselves in the same Valley she stood in now, she could almost narrate the murals as she walked along them, despite barely recognizing a word she saw. They led her to the opposite end of the room, to a doorway almost exactly like the one she’d come through to begin with, and when she whistled, she could hear the echoes of far, far larger and longer tunnels and rooms to explore.

Almost involuntarily, she swayed toward them, thinking of how much history there had to be, how much knowledge…

But she caught herself, and strode back to the library. Her pack would be missing her soon, and Beorn had mentioned knowing songs that had been passed down his family from before the Wandering Days.

But she’d come back.

Someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I know this one is super short, but this was the best stopping point.  
> Have I mentioned that I freaking love the ambiguity around Hobbits in canon? I can do practically anything with them!  
> Also, was it really, *really* convenient for the first room past the library to be a museum exhibit about Hobbits' origins? Yes. Is it even remotely plausible? Eh. Do I care? Nope.   
> Notes: 1) Link to one of the best pieces of Yavanna fanart I've seen in the text, and also one of my favorite representations of Aulë. 2) 'Coyotl' is the original form of 'coyote', and I feel like it sounds a little more Middle-Earth-ish than the modern version.  
> À demain!


	27. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the road again.

Belda hugged Beorn around the neck as tightly as she could; in comparison, he was being almost insultingly gentle, but she couldn’t actually complain about that. In quiet Hobbitish, she promised, not for the first time, “I’ll be back.”

As he lowered her to the ground again, he smiled sadly. “And I will count the days, litla frænka.” If the entire Company hadn’t been a handful of yards away, she was sure he would have shifted and wished her a proper goodbye. As it was, he only knelt and extended a hand; she reached out, hand in a loose fist, but he brushed a knuckle under her fingers, gently pulling them straight.

A sob caught in her throat and she moved her hand under his before throwing her arms around one of his legs. A large hand covered her back for several seconds, before she had to push away again. “Heitt skinn, skarpar tennur, skór frændi.”

“Heitt skinn, skarpar tennur.” Eyes shining, he pushed to his feet and took a half-dozen steps back.

With how badly she wanted to latch onto his leg and refuse to let go until either he agreed to come along or Thorin agreed to delay the quest, she understood why he was keeping his distance. It wouldn’t be fair to him or Thorin, or anyone else in the Company, for that matter. Beorn had already given them a half-dozen bows (she wasn’t sure she wanted to know where he’d gotten them, or the quivers of arrows); she couldn’t ask more of him than that. Vision blurring, she forced herself to turn her back on him and walk toward the ponies, toward the Company, toward her Uhdad.

Dwalin pulled her into his arms as soon as she was close enough, and she let herself clutch at him for a few precious seconds. She hadn’t had family she actually cared about for more than eleven years, and now she had Dwalin, and she had Kíli, and Fíli, and Ori, and Nori, and she had Beorn, and now she had to leave him, leave part of her family behind, and even though he wasn’t quite pack, it hurt.

But there was no time to dwell on it. As soon as she was sure that she wouldn’t fall apart without her father holding her, she drew away and mounted her pony.

As the Company followed suit, she listened idly to the ponies’ murmurs. Beorn’s herds were more intelligent than most animals, but they were still animals. After relearning how to understand full animals like her Da had taught her, she really hadn’t been surprised by their ‘conversation’; they spoke of food, safety, possible dangers, and her. To them, she was on a level with Beorn, despite how short a time they’d been around her. Given their regard for her—and the fact that they were undeniably Beorn’s—she felt a bit awkward around them, but she consoled herself with the knowledge that they’d be returning to Beorn soon enough.

Finally, Thorin mounted his pony, and Belda’s pony shifted under her, alert and ready for direction. Thorin flicked the reins expertly.

His pony didn’t move.

Gandalf flicked his reins.

His pony didn’t move, either.

Belda’s pony nickered a soft query, which was echoed by most of the ponies.

Oh.

Oh, no.

* * *

 

Ori

 

All things considered, it was a bit funny how the ponies refused to follow anyone but Belda. It took nearly ten minutes before she rolled her eyes at Thorin and Gandalf’s efforts and just rode ahead; half the Company nearly lost their seats as their ponies jolted into motion. No one was keen to talk for the first dozen miles or so, but once they were well past the boundaries of Beorn’s land, conversations began to break out.

Snickering as Fíli inadvertently got Glóin started about Gimli again, Ori left her to extricate herself and spurred his pony to ride beside Belda. “What was that, back there? With the hands? You did it when we arrived, too, but I forgot to ask.”

Belda looked at him sidelong for a moment, thoughtfully, then smiled. “It’s a Hobbit custom, that’s all. The person who holds out a closed hand is the… supplicant, I suppose you could say. It’s a request for acknowledgement, or for agreement or protection. The other person is the giver, and whether or not they complete the gesture is completely the giver’s decision. The supplicant’s adoption of that gesture is a sign of humility, or at least a way of acknowledging the giver’s superiority in social, economic, or familial areas. If the giver finishes the gesture, that signifies either their agreement or their acceptance of the supplicant as a peer.”

Ori took in the information carefully. After a moment, he tilted his head to the side. “So what did he do that made you cry?”

He wasn’t actually sure she’d been crying—her face had been turned away from him the entire time—but the tears that welled up in her eyes as she smiled at the question seemed to confirm it. “I told you, taking the supplicant’s pose—it’s a sign of respect to the giver. Doing what he did— um, for Dwarves, I think the equivalent would be… offering a braid. Something like that.”

Distantly, Ori realized his mouth was hanging open, and shut it with a snap. But… “I don’t understand. What did you do to deserve such an honor?”

After the question was already out, he realized how it sounded; he tried to stammer out an apology, but she waved off his half-syllables, laughing. “It’s nothing so formal, Ori. It was his way of wishing me luck, more likely than not, since I’m the one who has to keep all of you alive now we’ve left his house.”

Her laughter was infectious, especially on the last few words, and he couldn’t help but laugh with her for a few moments. After they’d both settled down, he glanced back at where Kíli was unsuccessfully trying to help Fíli escape Glóin’s monologuing, then maneuvered his pony as near to Belda’s as he could without colliding with her. She raised a questioning brow, face open and curious, and how easily he could imagine Kíli making that face only made his smile that much wider. “You and Kíli are a good match, you know.”

She turned bright red and faced ahead again, squinting against the sun, but she was fighting a smile, he could tell. After her blush had faded a bit, she muttered, “You’re a good match for Fíli, you know.” Now it was his turn to blush; he widened the distance between their ponies, but she spoke again before he could rein in his mount. “If Eru Himself intended you to be a Queen’s One, does it really matter what anyone else thinks?” Deliberately, she turned her head just enough to hold his gaze, eyes almost feline in the glare of the sunlight. “Including yourself.”

He didn’t actually have an answer to that, and did drop back, far enough that further conversation was impossible. She didn’t chase.

It wasn’t as though he thought Eru had made a mistake, it was just…

Well, just him.He wasn’t the sort of man who could ever be King, not a good King, anyway. Consort, maybe, but even that was…

But wasn’t she right? Fíli was his One and he was hers, which meant they were Ones for a reason, which meant that either Fíli wasn’t destined to be a Queen—which was poppycock, anyone with half a brain could see she’d be a brilliant monarch—or he was destined to be a Queen’s husband.

Terrifying? Yes.

Unbelievable?

…as much as he wanted to say yes, as much as his first thought was yes, Belda was right. If nothing else, he knew how to keep books, and Balin said he was doing well, learning the laws. He wouldn’t be completely useless, as a Queen’s husband. And maybe…

…maybe he could learn to be on her level.

Balin’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “…ow you said your mother taught you his language, lass, but how did he know Hobbit customs?”

While Ori had been thinking, Balin had ridden up on Belda’s other side; Ori couldn’t see her face as she paused, as she was mostly facing forward. “Beorn’s family has kept journals for years. His… grandfather? Maybe it was his great-grandfather. Whichever way, Hobbits are mentioned in some of his family’s journals.”

Balin’s brow furrowed. “How is that possible?”

She shrugged lightly, voice equally light. “He did mention that his family traveled more, before it was just him.”

Some of the confusion cleared from Balin’s face, but Ori had to work to keep his own expression from betraying him. The way she was answering the questions, her wording, her tone, even her body language, it reminded him of when she’d maneuvered him into telling her about his family history. He couldn’t imagine her lying outright, especially not to Balin’s face, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t misleading him somewhat.

But how? And did Ori even have the right to puzzle it out? If he was right and she was hiding something—which he could very well be wrong about—she probably had her reasons. He trusted her.

But he couldn’t help but be curious.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

“Tired, kit?”

Belda grumbled incoherently and burrowed further into his side.

“Oi, none o’ that.” Dwalin looked sharply at Óin; what was he doing? The physician ignored his look and poked Belda’s leg. “I saw you rubbing your eyes earlier. You’ve got the best eyes out of all of us; if there’s a problem with them, we need to fix it now.”

Belda kept her face against Dwalin’s chest, muffling her response. “I’m fine, just tired.”

Dwalin’s brow rose; if she was volunteering that, there probably was something to what Óin was saying. “Kit, do I need to be worried?”

He’d spoken quietly enough that he doubted anyone but Belda could hear him; she barely answered more loudly. “No, it’s nothing.”

His other brow joined the first. “Then there is something?”

“No, it—” Cutting herself off, she growled inaudibly, the vibration shivering from her into his chest almost as though she were purring.

Unfortunately, Thorin noticed the commotion and made his way over. “What’s going on here?”

“The lass’ eyes are bothering her.”

“No, they aren’t!”

Gandalf looked over, expression concerned. “If there is something to attend to, it’s best if it’s taken care of before we reach Mirkwood, kit.”

Her hand fisted in his jacket, but she didn’t respond for long seconds. Finally, she sat up and faced Óin with a scowl. “Fine.”

Nodding briskly, Óin sat directly in front of her, flapping a hand at Dwalin. Dwalin wasn’t about to leave her completely, but he did move aside far enough to give Óin space to work, and to see both their faces—Óin’s shadowed as he had his beck to the fire, Belda’s equally dark with Óin’s shadow covering her from head to toe. Belda had stopped shying away from Óin’s hands somewhere between the Carrock and now—Dwalin felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn’t even noticed—and only clenched her jaw when Óin tilted her head this way and that.

After a few exercises that Dwalin didn’t see any point in, Óin shifted position slightly and gestured at the fire behind him. “Keep your eyes on that, now, I need to see how they react to light.”

She tensed, but there was a resigned note in her features as she lowered her eyes obediently to the fire’s level. For an instant, Dwalin was caught by how huge her pupils were; that wasn’t normal, was it?

Then Óin moved, and Dwalin’s jaw dropped.

So did the rest of the Company’s.

Belda’s cheeks colored, her jaw jumping into even sharper relief, but she didn’t move her distinctly elliptic-pupiled eyes from the fire. “I told you, it’s nothing.”

Óin spluttered incoherently; Gandalf cleared his throat. “Regretfully, I must agree with Belda. If I had known what you were concerned about, I would have informed you that this is not uncommon for Hobbits nearing their majority.”

Thorin broke into Khuzdûl, cursing everything from the wizard to ‘secret-keeping children’ to ‘Eru-forsaken Hobbit guardians’. Ignoring him, Dwalin looked straight at Belda, raising his voice enough for the entire Company to hear.

“Kit, is this a problem?” She shook her head mutely, still not looking away from the fire. Biting his cheek, he cupped her opposite cheek, nudging her into looking at him; the pupil on the near side of her face, when she turned far enough for it to be shadowed again, expanded from a long oval to a huge circle that left half as much green around it as normal, and Dwalin wondered how he hadn’t noticed before. Putting aside his wonderings for the moment, he held her eyes resolutely. “Kit, we can’t help you if you don’t tell us what you need.”

As she exhaled, leaning slightly into his hand, her shoulders dropped a fraction. “I don’t need anything.”

“But what is it?” Kíli moved closer as he spoke, reaching toward her face before he seemed to think better of it. Eyes flicking toward Thorin for a split-second, he pulled back and sat beside Dwalin. “Is it hurting you?”

Dwalin doubted she’d have done anything but clam up if anyone else in the Company had asked, but her expression softened as she looked at Kíli. “My eyes are getting more sensitive to light, that’s all.”

“But why?”

On Belda’s other side, Dwalin saw Ori open his journal, pencil poised to take down what Belda told them. But Dwalin had a feeling that this was related to Hobbits’ being shape-shifters; he wasn’t surprised at the vagueness of her answer. “It’s just something that happens to Hobbits sometimes around our coming of age.”

Light sensitivity… why did he have the feeling he ought to understand? Dwalin wracked his brain, trying to think of any reason he might find it familiar. It wasn’t something that could happen to Dwarves, so it must have been something she told him about herself or Hobbits in general—but she’d said ‘sometimes’, just now—so was it something to do with fox-dr—

“Enough!” Thorin scowled at them all, but his glare didn’t hold much heat. “She said there’s nothing she needs. We ride at dawn; Kíli, take first watch.”

Tipping his head back, Kíli groaned melodramatically; Belda bit her lip to keep from laughing, but the fondness in her expression as she watched Kíli was obvious. The half-pleased, half-tender way he looked back at her was just as obvious.

Raising a brow, Thorin didn’t look away from his nephew as he amended, “If you feel so strongly about it, you can take second watch. Balin, you have first; Bifur, third.”

Kíli’s jaw dropped; he looked as though he’d protest for a moment, then seemed to realize that it would only make things worse and shut his mouth with a _click_. He and Belda exchanged a commiserating glance, but he only shrugged and wished them both a good night before going over to the bedroll he’d already set up.

Thoughts returning to their previous course as he and Belda set their bedrolls beside each other a little ways from anyone else in the Company, Dwalin waited until he was sure no one was close enough to hear a quiet conversation. Then, opening his mouth, he turned to Belda, only to see that she was already asleep.

He considered whether or not to wake her for a few moments, but she was curled against his side, injured ear turned to the stars, expression clear of the faint strain he hadn’t realized had been present for the majority of the day. Her eyes had been bothering her more than she’d let on, he guessed, and she’d obviously been more tired than she’d let on, as well. Even if she hadn’t fallen dead asleep in all of a minute, the starlight made the shadows under her eyes all the more evident.

Thinking back, he realized she’d been falling asleep earlier and earlier in the time they stayed at Beorn’s, though she always woke at her usual time, save for that first morning. Neither she or Gandalf had commented on it, which made him think it was probably usual for Hobbits nearing their coming of age.

Or at least for Hobbits who were physically changing. Her changes might not have been obvious, but they were still happening, and there could be more than just her eyes, for all he knew. Growth spurts did tend to be accompanied by needing more food and sleep than before, in his (admittedly inexpert) experience.

With difficulty, he held in a sigh. He wasn’t sure he could think of a worse time for this. Beorn had been exceptionally clear that they would have to ration their supplies in Mirkwood, and to be on near-constant alert if they wanted to make it to the other side unscathed. It wasn’t Belda’s fault, of course—he had no doubt that she would have delayed it if she had the slightest bit of control over it—but the next weeks were going to be brutal for her.

Laying his head down and watching the half-moon creep across the sky, he fell asleep making plans.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda plopped down beside Kíli without so much as a greeting, and slumped against his side before he could react.

“Uhhh…”

Frowning, she poked his leg. “Stop moving, you’re comfy.”

Letting her eyes fall closed, she couldn’t see his expression, but his scent was a mixture of uncertainty, amusement, and… relief? She wasn’t sure she understood the last, but he stayed still, so she didn’t really care about anything else. Dwalin and Thorin’s argument at the edge of her earshot grew just loud enough for her to hear, and she rolled her eyes behind closed lids. That morning, Dwalin had asked if (though she guessed he’d already guessed by then that) her ‘light-sensitivity’ was really vulpine night-vision; he’d nodded as though it wasn’t a surprise and dropped the issue.

So she’d been taken a bit off-guard after they made camp when he asked Thorin not to put her on watch for the foreseeable future. She appreciated his thoughtfulness, though. She wouldn’t have considered how that would go until she was in the middle of watch and couldn’t keep her eyes open, much like now.

Thorin, of course, was being stubborn about it.

She should probably put her two cents in.

…Nah.

Without opening her eyes, she began eating her serving of dinner; with the rationing Thorin had already put into place, all she’d be getting was a single (large) bowl at meals. It was still twice as much as what the others were eating.

Her food was gone all-too-soon, though Kíli had finished his a few minutes before. He’d had his arm around her since he finished eating. It was barely anything—it wasn’t hard to imagine Fíli or Bofur or Nori doing much the same—so there was no reason for her to be blushing. None whatsoever.

But she couldn’t stop.

“I didn’t get the chance to say, last night.” Confused, she blinked blearily up at him; she couldn’t muster the energy to say anything, but he continued after a moment, quirking his eyebrows. “Your eyes?”

Feeling her cheeks heat further, she made to lower her head, but he squeezed her waist lightly, drawing her eyes back to his. His smile wasn’t large, but it was genuine, and there was no discomfort or fear in his scent, despite how she knew eyes like hers must look to non-Hobbits.

“I think they’re amazing.” Even through the fatigue clouding her thoughts, she could sense the sincerity in his voice and his scent; hiding her face against his side was only natural, but it made it all the more difficult to ignore the swirl of affection, amusement, and concern that entered his scent as he laughed quietly. “Never known you to be shy.”

If nothing else, the tinge of concern alerted her to the question implicit in his words; heat spread from her cheeks down to her collarbone, but she did her best to keep her voice casual. “It’s different when it’s something I can’t control.”

Strictly speaking, that was true; as of late, with her fighting, her knowledge, and all other such skills, she could allay her discomfort with the knowledge that she’d earned it fairly. Such things as her looks or birth, which she only had by the grace of Eru, seemed to her as though they oughtn’t be praised, only acknowledged, and rarely. Adding to that the fact that it was an explicitly draconic feature, and she hadn’t the faintest idea how to react.

He let out a slight huff, but his scent carried understanding, not scorn. “I can understand that, I s’pose.”

Just as she registered the slur, a jaw-cracking yawn overtook Kíli, then her; his arm tightened around her as he yawned; she moved closer to him without thinking, then realized what she was doing and moved a bit closer still. By the time they’d both settled, she was nestled comfortably under his arm, her head resting on his chest, her fingers entwined in the laces of his shirt.

His voice rumbled through her, low and sleep-thick. “Missed this.”

“‘M sorry ‘bout that.” Hearing herself mumble, she did her best to wake herself up a bit, but couldn’t keep her eyes open. “Beorn had a lot t’ tell me.”

“No, ’s fine. You seemed ‘appier ev’ry time y’came from talkin’ to ‘im. Glad about tha’.”

His last words trailed off into a mumble; abruptly, he fell back against the dirt. The impact jolted through Belda with enough force to wake her up more fully, and she had just enough time to see that Thorin and Dwalin were still arguing before fatigue overtook her again. After a moment, Kíli chuckled sleepily. She didn’t have the energy to do the same, but warmth bloomed in her chest and drove her to nuzzle her head against his chest. His other arm came around her waist as well, and after a moment of shifting, she couldn’t imagine anything more comfortable.

The last things she was aware of that night were Kíli’s scent and warmth surrounding her, an overwhelming sense of home, and right, and belonging, and her own voice, barely audible over the crackling of the fire and the distant sound of unintelligible Khuzdûl. “I missed you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell I was watching a period drama while I was writing some of the Belda/Kíli scene?  
> No notes for this one, but there won't be an update tomorrow, since it's Thanksgiving. (There will be an extra Redamancy update, for those of you who are reading that, too, though.) Sorry, but as of now, I only have a ten and a half chapter buffer, so I need all the extra time I can get.  
> À Vendredi!


	28. Ori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misunderstandings Abound.

Ori set down his empty bowl, holding back a sigh. He understood why Thorin was beginning the rationing already, but he couldn’t help but wish they could have another day or two of having enough to eat. Drumming his fingers on his leg, he glanced around the camp: Dori was already setting up his bedroll, despite how early it was; Fíli was standing near Thorin and Dwalin as they argued, and rolled her eyes at him when she noticed him looking; smiling, he looked toward Belda, only to feel his jaw drop as he took in her position.

Her and Kíli’s position.

As in, the two of them, curled up together like cats in a basket, and very peacefully, very obviously, asleep.

Furtively, he glanced toward Thorin to see if he’d noticed, but neither of the Durin men seemed to have. A sharp, light _whap_ on the back of his head startled him into sitting up straight again. Nori clucked her tongue as she sat beside him. “I know I taught you to be more subtle than that, love.”

He flushed; she had. “Sorry, Nori. I forgot.”

Her expression softened marginally, but she still looked sidelong at him for a moment, shaking her head. “You’ll have to remember from now on, Ori. You’re in bed with royalty now.”

“Nori!” Mortified, he shot a look toward Fíli, but Nori had spoken quietly; no one else had heard. “I am not!”

Nori’s lips twitched. “Metaphorically, love. You’re both too conscientious for it to be anything but.” Slowly, his cheeks cooled; so did Nori’s expression. “But my point still stands. High and mighty folk can be more vicious than low-borns when the mood strikes them. Not her and hers,” she said over his protest, “but the nobles you’ll have to deal with after the Quest. There’ll be plenty of those who’ll look at you and see nothing but the penniless son of disgraced traitors.”

A hurt scowl pulled at his mouth. “But they didn’t do anything, it was just—”

“Thrór’s gold-sickness?” Smiling sadly, Nori shook her head at him and nodded to Thorin. “So long as Thrór’s blood is on the throne, none of his supporters will hear a word against him. That’s just how nobles think. It’s nothing to do with Fíli, nothing to do with Thorin, not even to do with you, really. But they’ll look down their noses at you while they bow. Let a single sneer or frown or smirk slip, and they’ll do everything they can to bring you down.” As she looked at him, she trailed off; he wondered what she saw in his face. Sighing, she tugged him close enough to tap their foreheads together before sitting back again. “You’ll need to be strong then, so start training now. Sooner you start…”

“The better prepared I’ll be.” Ori finished Nori’s favorite watchwords with a rueful smile; he didn’t heed them as often as he ought, hence why he’d joined a quest at the age of a hundred and twenty-three with only a sling for a weapon. She’d been nudging him toward learning other types of fighting for decades, but he’d let Dori’s insistence on his present well-being distract him from the long-term advantages. Yes, he could break his arm learning to swing a hammer, but it might have been useful to know when they were fighting Goblins and Orcs.

“But anyway,” she snickered, “you obviously noticed the bantith ra kanbith.”

Ori had to stifle a snort; ‘kitten and puppy’ were the perfect terms for Belda and Kíli.

“Leave them be. Fíli noticed a few minutes ago, she’s been keeping Thorin busy since.”

“And if Dwalin notices?”

Nori’s eyes fixed on the Dwarf in question. To the rest of the Company, she wouldn’t have looked any different than usual, but Ori could see the hints of contemplativeness in her eyes, and unless he was mistaken, affection. “I’ll handle him.” Her eyes cut to Ori, crinkling at the corners. “He’d hear your knees shaking and laugh the lovebirds awake.”

Ori scoffed in mock offense, but couldn’t help but laugh at the image anyway. A few moments later, Dori called him over; with an apologetic smile for Nori, he obeyed, but did put his foot down about staying up a bit longer. He had a new scene to sketch.

* * *

 

Nori

 

As Thorin and Dwalin came to a reluctant agreement, Fíli led her uncle away from where the kit and pup were sleeping; Nori moved quickly to intercept Dwalin for the same reason.

“Nori,” he greeted gruffly, nodding to her.

She quirked a brow at him. “Dwalin. Are we finished saying each others’ names for no reason?”

He snorted; she hid a smile. “You had a reason for coming over here, if I know you.”

“That’s a bit of an ask. But you are right.”

Now he raised a brow. Wordlessly, she cocked her head toward the sleeping sweethearts. His eyes stayed on hers for a long moment, unreadable and dark, then followed her motion. Then widened. Then narrowed. Then his jaw clenched.

“Let them sleep.”

His eyes flicked down to hers again. “Why?”

His tone was harsh, but she knew him well enough to know that he’d listen. “Because we’re in for six weeks of misery, at least. This might be the last little indulgence either of them are going to get until after the Quest is over and done with. They aren’t doing any harm, neither of them. They’re just asleep. So let them sleep.”

His expression hardened a fraction. “I don’t trust either of them not to ‘overindulge’.”

“Not even your own daughter?”

He snorted. “They’re young. Do you remember how easy it was to get carried away at that age?”

A light huff left her, out of amusement or bitterness, she wasn’t sure. “I remember seeing how easy it was.” She’d never had the luxury of getting carried away.

By the way his eyes softened, she guessed he realized that. Too late, she remembered he’d been much the same, going from Erebor’s fall to the War of Dwarves and Orcs to forging a life in Ered Luin before he’d even been Kíli’s age. “Aye.”

For a few moments, they stood in peaceful silence. The mingled firelight and shadows turned his eyes to green and grey, though she knew very well they were blue. More grey than Thorin’s or Dori’s, not as green as hers or Ori’s, but Durin blue all the same. Usually when she was close enough to see his eyes, he was either arresting or ‘interrogating’ her—not that he had the stomach for a real interrogation, not like the ones she’d grit her teeth through in half a dozen less honorable towns—and she was too busy thinking up cover stories to relax.

But now she could appreciate the moment, and appreciate the sight. He had nice eyes.

Quietly, he sighed. “If something happens—”

“You’ll hold me responsible?” He didn’t quite look amused at the interruption, but he didn’t look irritated, either. “I’ve got first watch. I can keep an eye on them as well as everything else.”

The crease between his brows returned, and deepened. “The other watches?”

“Bifur’s after me, Balin on third. I’ll ask Bifur to wake you if he notices anything… not as it should be.”

His frown eased. For a moment, he eyed her thoughtfully. “I would’ve thought…”

She raised a brow. “What? That I’d be encouraging them to run off together while you weren’t looking?”

Chuckling, he shook his head at her. “You going to tell me that’s so different from what you did?”

Even knowing he (probably) didn’t mean anything by it, the words stung. “I did what I had to. For the record, Dori and I might be on opposite sides most of the time, but I do know there’s a happy medium parents are meant to strive for. Just because I think Dori’s too overbearing doesn’t mean I think anarchy’s the answer.” Frowning now in earnest, he opened his mouth, but she had no patience for whatever new way of moralizing he’d thought of. “I’ll wake you if she needs you. Goodnight, Dwalin.”

If he tried to say anything else, Nori didn’t hear as she walked away. By the time she reached her post, he was moving back to his bedroll, head hanging.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Nori’s words were still ringing in his ears the next morning. The look on her face…

He hadn’t meant it like that. He hadn’t meant that she was a poor influence on Belda, or on Ori. He hadn’t meant that she was a rebel or an anarchist. He hadn’t meant to insult the way she made her living.

Granted, he wasn’t sure how he’d react if she chose to be a thief after the Quest’s end. As he understood the situation, she’d become—and remained—a criminal out of desperation to provide for her family. He didn’t agree with the profession she’d chosen, but he understood why she’d done so. When Dori and Ori had their shares of the treasure, she’d have no reason to continue thieving unless…

He could understand desperate measures. He couldn’t understand the sort of person that would choose to be a criminal for the joy of it.

He hadn’t meant to say what he had. This was why he’d insisted that Belda explain about ‘halfling’ weeks before; he always muddled things. Words and meanings and intonations— he was completely hopeless with writing, but he was hardly better speaking. Balin was the wordsmith, not him, always had been.

But he knew how to talk to Belda, at least. His misgivings about the arrangement had rushed back in full force when he saw her still sleeping with the pup at dawn, though he was satisfied that neither of them had overstepped, now.

It was hard to suspect anything untoward when he’d seen for himself how shocked they were to wake up together. Doubly so when they’d both flushed to their toes and scrambled apart, stammering incoherently. Trebly so when they’d been in such a state (and so tangled together) that he’d head-butted her and she’d kicked him in the ribs in their efforts to separate.

He was going to savor that image for years to come.

But just untangling themselves evidently hadn’t been enough, as they’d fled to opposite sides of the camp, still red-faced and flustered. Thorin had taken Kíli even further aside, though he was managing to keep his voice down for now.

Belda had sequestered herself by the ponies, ostensibly to get them ready to ride out, but Dwalin didn’t think she was doing much besides using them to hide. Sure enough, when he made his way into the pack (with minimal fussing by the beasts themselves; Dwalin supposed he smelled a bit like Belda with how often they hugged), he found his daughter sitting against an obliging pony, with her head in her hands and her back to the Company.

Holding in a laugh, he sat beside her and waited. It was only a few moments before she leaned against his side, though she didn’t move otherwise.

“Not that I don’t sympathize, but I don’t think this is the end of the world.”

She groaned quietly. It might have been a whine.

“You’ve cuddled with him before and never been this embarrassed.”

Definitely a whine. “But this time we were asleep!”

He raised a brow as she burrowed her face into his jacket. “Did you have strange dreams or something?”

She jolted back, face reddening so quickly that he wondered if her feet would go numb. “No!” Just as he was about to ask another question, she ducked her head and finished shyly, “I didn’t have any dreams, actually.”

“So you slept well?” She nodded, still blushing. “Good.” Her eyes snapped to him, widening a fraction. “I can be glad you got a good night’s sleep and not like where and with who you slept at the same time, you know.”

Her blush deepened. “Nothing happened! It wasn’t— wasn’t like that,” a worry he’d been trying to ignore evaporated, “it— it was just—”

“You were tired and you fell asleep.”

Mutely, she nodded.

Watching her, he shook his head and extracted his arm out from between them in order to wrap it around her instead. “I’m sorry for pressing. For the record, I do trust you. But you have to admit, you were a bit more flustered than nothing happening would explain.”

Her blush deepened; ducking her head, she mumbled something he couldn’t make out.

“What?”

If anything, her blush spread further. She only just raised her voice enough to be audible. “He smells really good.”

He… didn’t know what to do with that. “…Good?”

She twisted, pressing her face against his chest. After a moment, she spoke, and he realized she’d taken his half-statement as a request for elaboration rather than the escape he’d meant it to be. “You remember what I told you about Hobbit Mates?”

Like Ones, except weaving instead of alloying. “I think so.”

One of her hands crept up to his bead in her braid, twisting it around. “Well, the thing is just— when two Hobbits— when Mates— but it’s only after— sometimes it takes a while— but then— scent tells everything for Hobbits— age and temperament and soul-form and— and Mates— but I didn’t think— I never— but it can’t be wrong— I don’t think— but I never believed th— well, I did, but—”

She paused for breath; Dwalin took the opportunity to break through the babbling while he could. “Kit, slow down. This has something to do with scent? Kíli’s scent?” For a moment, she didn’t respond. Then, faintly, she nodded. “There’s something unexpected about Kíli’s scent?” Another nod. “Something you didn’t notice before?” A much more hesitant nod. “Something new?” A certain nod. “His scent changed recently?”

She nodded again, not uncertainly, but a bit nervously, he thought. Why would she be nervous? And why would his scent have changed? She said just a moment before that scent tells age, temperament, soul-form, and Mates: Kíli’s age couldn’t have changed substantially enough to be noticeable; his temperament certainly hadn’t changed, though he had matured a bit over the last few months; he wasn’t a Hobbit, so he couldn’t have a soul-form; and he couldn’t be her M—

But he could, couldn’t he.

Carefully, Dwalin cleared his throat and made sure his voice was low enough to be inaudible to everyone but his daughter. “Kit, are you two Mates?”

A tremor shook her lightly. She nodded.

Letting loose a slow, quiet breath, he let his head fall against the pony’s side. Now at least he understood why she was hiding; it seemed to always be her first thought when she didn’t know how to handle a situation, and even he barely knew what to do in this.

He didn’t doubt her. Not that she was telling the truth, not that she could tell without a doubt. If she said Kíli was her Mate, then he was.

But if Kíli was her Mate, then it followed that she had to be his One; she’d said that Mates were never unreciprocated, and since Dwarves had Ones rather than Mates, then that would be how Kíli would recognize it.

But until Kíli did recognize her as his One, Thorin would never believe it. He was doing better with her, ever since their conversation at Beorn’s, or whatever it was that had happened that day, but there was a difference between Thorin’s personal respect and Thorin’s acceptance as a suitor for his only sister-son. Fíli and Ori had barely been able to convince Thorin and Dori to let them court, and they were each other’s Ones.

Until Kíli recognized Belda as his One, Thorin would never accept her suit.

Belda stirred, breaking Dwalin out of his thoughts; he looked down to see her shift around so that her face was visible, though she didn’t meet his eyes yet. “Beorn noticed first, actually. He pointed it out the day before we left, not that I believed him. But he was right. I’ve been trying to think of when I marked him, but I know I didn’t right before we fell into the Goblin caves, but it would’ve had to have been around then for his scent to have already changed so much, and I know I didn’t after then, either.”

Thinking back to the night after the Carrock, Dwalin had to stifle a snicker. “I think I might know when.” She looked up at him inquisitively, and he called on all his decades of training to help him keep from laughing aloud at the memory. “Fíli really didn’t tell you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “…No…”

Grinning, he tightened his arm around her a fraction. “A few hours after we climbed down from the Carrock, you were unconscious and I’d been so dead tired that I let the pups talk me into letting them keep an eye on you while I slept. I woke up, and you were snuggled up in the pup’s lap, content as can be.” Her entire face, her ears, and what he could see of her neck flushed scarlet. “Don’t know if this helps, but I saw you—still asleep—sort of nose along his jaw. Like this.” Tugging her properly onto his lap, he copied what she’d done that night with one hand, while tickling her with the other.

In between giggles, she managed to push him away, though she didn’t move away from him once he did. Curling against his chest, she nodded, still giggling faintly. “Yeah, that would explain it, although it’s still a bit fast. He and Fíli both scent-marked me accidentally the day we met, so once I marked him in return, our scents starting changing.”

Dwalin tilted his head. “How so?”

“Well, everyone’s scent is unique. Well, I mean, there are elements that are shared, between families and kinds, but everyone has something to set them apart from similarly-scented people. All you Durins smell like danger and adventure.” She smiled, genuine and sweet. “Your personal scent is like home and peace. Kíli’s used to be like misbehaving and playing, but now he smells like a misbehaving predator.”

At the last, her smile turned to something no less genuine, but quite a bit more wolfish, and Dwalin changed the subject before he thought too much about what she must have been thinking about. “How can someone smell like danger and peace at the same time?”

Her smile fell away as she blinked up at him. “How can someone be a scribe and a warrior at the same time? Besides, it’s not literal. It’s more…”

After a moment, he offered, “Metaphorical?”

Her mouth twisted in clear dissatisfaction, but she nodded. “Close enough. Some smells can’t be described, really, not in Westron or Khuzdûl or anything but Hobbitish, and even then, a description is useless if you can’t smell it, too. It would be like pointing to two identical shades of green and saying that one of them looks like a completely different color to me. You wouldn’t be able to see the difference, so what would be the point of telling you the name of the color?”

“Hobbitish?” His brows lifted. “The language you were speaking with Beorn.”

She nodded. “Sorry, I meant to tell you about that before. But you’re changing the subject. Have you ever heard music that made you think of something completely different? You couldn’t say why, exactly, but the music sounded like starlight, or like summer, or anger?”

Slowly, he nodded. “Not often, but yes.”

“That’s what I mean with scent. Your scent makes me remember my childhood, falling asleep in front of the fireplace with a book, or stargazing with my Da. Home and peace. But your family scent, yours and Thorin’s and Kíli’s and Óin’s and Dori’s and all your siblings’, that’s like a cold metal against your throat and standing a bit too close to a bonfire when all you want to do is move closer. Danger and adventure.”

He thought over her words for a few long moments. He still didn’t truly understand, but he thought he understood as much as a non-Hobbit could. “So has your scent changed to be more like Kíli’s?”

Her blush returned, but she nodded, trying and failing to banish her smile. “We’re starting to smell the same. After last night, it’ll be more than ever.”

“And every time you cuddle, it’ll go a little faster.”

She elbowed him at ‘cuddle’, but didn’t deny it. But a moment later, she stilled, expression falling. “If it goes much further, it’ll be irreversible.”

His brows shot up. “Reversible? I thought you said Mates were joined by Eru Himself.”

“They were, but tradition says that everyone has more than one potential Mate. It’s who they meet first and love best that becomes their true Mate, through their choosing each other.”

“…But they can choose not to be Mates?”

She was silent for several moments. “They can choose to leave each other.” Ah. So it was more serious than he’d thought. As though she’d read his mind, she elaborated, “If I wanted to stop this between Kíli and I, I’d have to avoid even talking to him for the rest of the Quest, and longer if I hadn’t met another potential Mate by then. If they exist.”

Her tone was unmistakable. “But you don’t want to stop this.”

Slowly, she shook her head.

“And you’re sure you won’t change your mind?”

She was still for even longer, then slowly, slowly, shook her head again.

Well. After wrestling with himself for a moment, Dwalin wrapped his free arm around her and hugged her close; she returned it tightly. “It’s your choice, kit. Choose to leave him and I’ll help keep him away. Choose to keep him and— well, I can’t support you if you want to elope with him before the week’s end, but he’s a good lad. I want you to take your time, take things slow, and make sure you’re sure of your own mind before you do anything lasting, but I can think of any hundred worse Dwarves for son-in-laws.”

She huffed lightly, but tightened her arms around him as she nuzzled into his chest.

Thorin began calling for the Company to move out a handful of minutes later, but their conversation stayed with Dwalin for some time.

It was a strange thought, having more than one One. Though, really, it sounded more like choosing a One, but that was just as strange. He couldn’t deny, though, that it would have its advantages. Many a Dwarf had rejected his or her One after learning of a criminal past, or debts, or politics; Dwalin shied away from any thoughts of Nori. But with how complicated Hobbit politics sounded, how many disasters had been avoided by virtue of their ability to turn away in favor of a more suitable Mate? And whichever Mate they chose, they had the surety in each that Eru had guaranteed the match.

Of course, she’d qualified that by saying it was according to tradition, which she hadn’t bothered to do with much more outlandish things. So there was a decent chance that it wasn’t true after all.

But Dwalin knew, even the illusion of choice could keep people from falling into despair.

Perhaps it was true, perhaps it wasn’t. Either way, he thought it was more than likely she’d choose Kíli.

Though as Ori fell back, scowling after (presumably) losing his argument with Belda, Dwalin supposed he could be wrong.

“They still aren’t talking?”

Ori leveled an exhausted glare at him. “I have never felt so much like an adult in my life.”

Dwalin had to say this for Ori: he was good for a laugh now and then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else had that moment when you're talking to people who are a little younger than you and it's no problem, but then they say or do something and you're just like 'holy crap, *I'm* an adult'. Yeah, that's what Ori's going through right now. Really, he's got it roughest out of anyone else in the Company; Fíli's the only other one who's friends with both, but since Kíli's her brother, she doesn't feel the need to talk some sense into him. (Just look at how she reacted when Belda was on his lap.) Ori, though, is trying to stay on good terms with both and also not to just freaking grab them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them.   
> They're both idiots. When it comes to this stuff, anyway.  
> No notes for this one, really.  
> À demain!


	29. Olorin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand more procrastinating. No one wants to go into Mirkwood.

Olorin held back a grimace as they neared the forest’s edge. It had been visible since the sun’s rising, though they’d already been riding for some time by then, but the closer they drew to their destination, the more he disliked the thought of sending the Company inside without him. But between Radagast’s description of the forest’s decay, his report of the happenings in Dol Guldur, and Beorn’s report of the dead walking near the High Fells of Rhudaur, he couldn’t stay with the Dwarves. He couldn’t ignore the signs any longer and risk worse because of his inattention.

At mid-afternoon, they reached the Elven gate. Uneasily, he dismounted and ventured into the forest’s edge. The trees were grey and twisting, vines strangling branches and stonework alike, including a statue of Queen Aerlinn. Olorin’s stomach twisted at the sight of that, remembering her kindness. She deserved better than this. But there was something more, something… something he couldn’t see.

Something under the surface.

In one smooth motion, he pulled off the weeds covering her chest, and bile burned his throat to see her image defaced with the mark of Sauron.

At the same instant that he uncovered it, a flash of fire and death scorched through his mind, and a strangled gasp came from behind him. Sharply, he looked back, somehow unsurprised to see Belda, pale and wide-eyed, snatch her hand away from a tree near the entrance. Her eyes snapped to his an instant later, and he struggled to understand the emotions he saw there. Revulsion, shock, fear, those were clear, but if he was interpreting what he saw correctly, she felt much the same as he did, understood nearly as much as he did.

Nodding to himself, he strode toward her, not surprised when she didn’t take a single step further into the woods. Falling back a step as he neared, she inclined her head to the side. “A word?”

“Just what I was about to suggest, my dear.” She led the way out of the trees, aiming well to the side of where the Company was setting camp; Dwalin half-stepped toward them, but fell still at a discreet shake of Belda’s head. Nori, Ori, and Kíli all looked liable to follow anyway, but Thorin set them to work quickly. Fíli was tending to the ponies in Belda’s absence, but only seemed to be unpacking them for the night, not for good. “Now would be the time to send these excellent ponies back to Beorn, Fíli.”

A chorus of groans and grumbles met his pronouncement, but Belda growled low in her throat and pointed to Beorn where he waited, half-hidden in the trees some distance away. “You gave your word, we all did.” A few more grumbles—albeit far quieter than in response to Olorin—answered her, and she lowered her voice to a threatening purr. “And I’d see any of those beasts set one hoof inside the forest as soon as I’d see any of you dead.”

Olorin quirked a brow; she would never follow through on the implied threat, he knew, but that she would even bluff such spoke to her aversion to the forest’s blight. The grumbles abruptly fell silent. After a moment, Fíli cleared her throat and began stripping the ponies of all their gear; Ori and Dori quickly moved to assist her.

Olorin smothered a laugh at the admiring way Kíli looked at Belda before moving to help his sister.

As they moved to the lone horse, though, he admonished them sharply. “Not my horse, Dori, I have need of it yet.”

Quietly, Belda corrected, “Her.”

Dori looked at him despairingly. “You don’t mean to leave us, Gandalf.”

More than a few in the Company shared Dori’s expression, but he had no reassurances for them. “In the morning, yes. I have pressing business down south, and I am already late through bothering with you people.” Thorin and Belda gave him near-identical offended glares. “But I am at least sending Belda with you. There is no help I could offer that could equal her.”

Thorin looked a bit appeased, at least, but Belda, if anything, seemed more troubled than ever. The immediate business taken care of, Olorin continued the way he and Belda had been traveling, only coming to a halt when they were well out of earshot, and far enough from the forest’s edge to see any would-be eavesdroppers coming. As he came to a halt, the Company released the ponies; they came to Belda, as he might have guessed.

One by one, she sent them off toward Beorn’s, and the bear himself followed the last after bowing his head solemnly to Belda. “He respects you greatly.”

She bobbed her head noncommittally. “I have a greater burden than he does. He respects that.”

There was a melancholy edge to her voice; lightly, he asked, “Trying to keep thirteen Dwarves alive, you mean?”

A smile flitted over her lips, but it didn’t last as long as he’d hoped. Sighing, she looked toward the Elven gate again. “Is there no way around?”

He sighed, as well, more heavily than she. “Not unless you go two hundred miles north, or twice that distance south.” He fully expected that to be the end of it; to his surprise, she looked as though she were seriously weighing the merits of the delay. “Is it so repellant?”

Her expression darkened in a flash, and she nodded grimly. His brows leapt up, but he had no chance to speak before she did. “This place… it’s wrong, it—” Her words had been little more than a hiss, and as she stopped, evidently wordless, she bared her teeth in a silent snarl and shook her head snappishly.

There was something strange about her reaction, how potent it was, but then, it was only to be expected that she would be more feral than usual, this close to her First Shift. He had no way to know unless he asked. “‘Wrong’ how?”

As she sobered, her snarl faded, though there was still something distinctly animalistic about her tiny, twitching movements. “It feels…” ‘Sick’, he supplied. But she surprised him. “Dark. Corrupted. Or corrupting.” She shook her head again, the motion reminiscent of her motherwhen she was angry. “I don’t know, but it makes my skin crawl.”

On the last few words, she rolled her shoulders one at a time, shifting her weight as though to compensate for a thrashing tail. The motions reminded him of the scene atop the Carrock, his revelation that whatever her soul-form was, she’d have wings, and he frowned anew; no bird had eyes like hers. What was she? “You can sense all that?”

She stilled, but for her twitching ears. After a long moment, she nodded, eyes rising to his. The grave intensity there held him inexorably. “Not just with the forest.”

His brow furrowed more deeply; what could she be referring to? Slowly, she reached into a pocket, digging deeper than he might have expected, and drew out her hand in a loose fist. For a few moments, she only looked at her own hand. Taking a deep breath, she opened her fingers to reveal a small, golden ring, clean and shining in the sunlight, and brightly contrasted against her skin.

He couldn’t recall ever seeing her with it, or her parents, for that matter. “Where did you get that?” Perhaps the Troll hoard?

“The Goblin tunnels. The Hob-Goblin I mentioned, he had it in his pocket. It fell out after I knocked him out.”

That made less sense than it being an heirloom. “Why didn’t you tell anyone before?”

Again, she met his eyes grimly. “Because of what it did to the Goblins. I told you all that I killed two Goblins fairly, two while they were distracted, and one threw himself on my sword. What I didn’t say was that this ring was what distracted the last three.” A twinge of foreboding struck Olorin, and his eyes fell to the ring as she continued. “After I killed the second Goblin, this fell—or jumped—” He hoped she was only anthropomorphizing, but he had a nasty feeling that she wasn’t, “out of my pocket, and all three Goblins immediately lunged for it. I can’t say whether or not I would have been able to kill all five of them on my own, but they were so desperate for this— this thing,” her voice sharpened to a disgusted hiss, “that they completely forgot about me. That’s when I killed the second pair of Goblins, but the last got ahold of the ring while I was busy.”

She paused until he met her eyes. “It turned him invisible, Gandalf. It was only luck that I had my sword at just the right position, just the right angle, to go through his heart when he pounced.”

Absently, he admonished, “There’s no such thing as luck.” This was ill news.

“Providence, then. But you didn’t see the look on those Goblins’ faces,” her eyes were haunted with the memory, “you didn’t smell the lust in their scents. They didn’t just want this ring, they needed it, and they killed for it. And it feels the same as Mirkwood.” She gave a full-body shudder, rolling her shoulders again. “It makes my skin crawl just holding it.”

Ill news indeed. But if it affected the Goblins so… His eyes flicked to hers, dreading what he might see— but she was looking down at the ring. “Then why did you take it? For Eru’s sake, kit, why did you tell no one? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her eyes snapped to his, and his chest loosened to see only a hint of exasperation in her face, nothing darker. “Magic rings aren’t so unusual, Gandalf, you know that as well as I do, but have you ever heard of something that enthralled people like that? The only explanation I can think of is that it’s more powerful than anything I’ve ever heard of before, and I could not leave it for Eru-knows-who to find!” Her voice had risen to a near-shout, and she lowered it deliberately. “And I couldn’t risk it affecting the Company, either. So I didn’t tell them, and I didn’t tell you while they were in earshot. It doesn’t seem to affect anyone unless they know of it, so I will not tell them.” The desperation in her voice finally spilled over, and she looked pleadingly at Olorin. “I can’t watch that happen to my pack, Gandalf. Not them. Not my family.”

He still wasn’t sure there wasn’t more to it than simple fear for her pack, but he also couldn’t argue with her impulse to protect them from it. “Very well.” Her shoulders dropped a fraction. “When you say that it feels like the forest—”

“It’s exactly the same.” She paused, mouth pulling into a frown. “Except more concentrated in the ring.”

His stomach plummeted, twisting into knots. There was only one ring he knew of that would share Sauron's signature. No. No, that ring had been lost long ago. She was wrong, she had to be. But he couldn’t be sure of that. He would have to find that answer while he investigated the others. But there was one thing he could try yet.

Gingerly, he reached toward the ring, only for Belda to flinch her hand away, looking at him fearfully. For a long moment, he could only pray, _‘Please, Eru, not her.’_

Swallowing, she whispered thickly, “Are you sure it won’t affect you, too?”

So— Oh. That was… not ideal, but he preferred her fearing what he might do than fearing for the ring. Gently, he reasoned, “If it were going to, it would have when I first saw it, don’t you agree?” Though he wouldn’t be taking it, if he had a choice. He had no desire to possess it, only to verify what it was and was not.

The fear didn’t leave her features entirely, but her ears stopped twisting back so strongly. Nodding, she held her hand out again, and lifted it up to the level of his chest. Carefully, he extended a hand, and let his fingers come into contact with the cold metal.

Fire and death and blinding greed scorched again through his mind, and he recoiled instinctively. Her eyes were wide as she watched him, and he met them soberly. “You’re right, kit. It is powerful,” more powerful than he’d expected, “and it is dark.” And undoubtably Sauron’s. A fresh nightmare occurred to him. “Have you worn it?”

A revolted grimace assuaged his dread somewhat. “After seeing what it did to the Goblins, it’s bad enough having it in my pocket— I’m not having it on my finger!”

“Good. Don’t.”

Obviously catching some of the steel in his voice, she blinked apprehensively at him. “What is it?”

He hesitated; she had enough to deal with already without knowing what she carried. “…I’m not sure.” Not without a single doubt, anyway. “I suspect…” Should he tell her, after all? Not everything, but… “But if my suspicions are correct, you must not wear it, under any circumstances. You must not let it out of your possession, no matter how tempted you are. And above all, you must not allow the Dwarves or anyone else to know of it.”

She straightened slightly, squaring her shoulders as she held his gaze resolutely, and his foreboding eased further. “I won’t.” Her expression faltered. “Will you be gone long?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he closed her fingers over the ring and knelt down to embrace her properly. He couldn’t remember the last time he held his goddaughter, but she returned the hold after only a moment of fumbling to hide the ring away again. “I don’t know. If it is at all in my power, I will join you by Durin’s day. If not, as soon as is possible.”

She nodded, sniffling quietly, and drew back. “Hurry.”

He agreed, and they rejoined the others. But for the remainder of the day, and much of the next, as he departed from them, his thoughts were nearly as occupied with the matter of Belda as they were with the ring.

She’d said that she was like her mother, weeks ago. She had a predator’s instincts, certainly. On the Carrock, she’d certainly indicated that she was something with wings; he’d never seen any but bird-Hobbits long for the sky as she did. But her eyes were that of a fox. And he’d never seen or heard tale of any beast that could sense magic like she did. It took no special skill to feel the darkness in Mirkwood, but the ring was far more cleverly disguised, and she’d felt Elrond’s protections around Rivendell, as well.

What was she?

And what would happen if the ring ensnared her as it had Isildur?

* * *

 

Nori

 

Nori watched Belda carefully as she and the wizard came back from their little tête-à-tête—she’d seen them both flinching as they spoke—but saw no evidence of tears or anger, just a bit of melancholy. And it wasn’t hard to guess at why.

They’d have been dead without Tharkûn in the Misty Mountains, and with the Trolls, and on the cliff. Now, they were about to go into a place as cursed as any Nori had ever seen, and he was abandoning them. Not that Nori could truly fault him for it, it was only common sense, but still, she couldn’t help but be afraid.

She had no idea what to expect from the Mirkwood, despite all Beorn and Gandalf’s warnings.

She couldn’t prepare for something she didn’t understand.

Dwalin met Belda a few paces before she reached the Company—no surprise there—while Gandalf continued on into the camp proper. Nori was about to follow, to give father and daughter a bit of privacy, when she caught a snatch of their conversation.

“…orest? Is it a dragon thing?”

Nori very carefully did not turn, or look at Dwalin, or give any indication that she’d heard him. But she heard Belda’s reply as well.

“…nd it must be why we left Anduin. Hobbits don’t do anything like that without good reason, and this? This is good reason. I on…”

Bombur beginning to serve the meal gave Nori the escape she needed, and she melted into the bustle of the Company without Dwalin or Belda realizing she’d been close enough to hear.

But she had.

She could understand why Dwalin might think Smaug had caused the Greenwood’s decay—it was as good an explanation as any—but why would he think Belda would know? The phrasing stuck with her, as well. ‘A dragon thing’. Why not say ‘desolation’ if that was what he meant? Or ‘because of Smaug’? Or ‘because of the dragon’, if he was so averse to the beast’s name. Why say it like that?

And what did she mean, Hobbits had left Anduin because of the Mirkwood? When had Hobbits been in Anduin in the first? And if Hobbits ‘don’t do anything like that without good reason’, then why had they gone to Anduin at all? Though, from what Nori’d seen of Mirkwood, she couldn’t understand why it would be ‘good reason’, either. It wasn’t as though it would chase them. It was a forest.

Bofur sat beside her with a thump, nearly startling her into visibly reacting. He smiled through bulging cheeks. She resisted the momentary urge to scold him for wolfing down his food when they had so little of it and began slowly eating her own serving.

She didn’t have friends, really. She had colleagues, a few, and a few people like Dwalin she liked to annoy, but people in her line of work couldn’t afford to have friends. Bofur, though, had met her when he happened on her while she was hiding in a closed mineshaft. The entire reason she’d hidden there in the first place was that no one was meant to be working there and she knew it. So did Bofur. It didn’t stop him.

With an older cousin and a younger brother to support, he couldn’t quite make ends meet legally, so he didn’t see anything wrong with her hiding from the guards. There was a bit more risk, working in closed shafts, but for someone with stone-sense as strong as Bofur’s, there was a bit more money to be made that way. Legal mines had all those fiddly little rules and regulations and chains of command, keeping individual miners from doing anything that could bring the tunnel down around them.

Probably smart, that, but if you were desperate enough, the risk wasn’t so bad.

She’d never actually helped Bofur with anything but finding a fence, and he’d never helped her with anything but places to hide, but it worked. Whatever it was they had.

And somehow or other, she’d learned about his cousin—and how hard it was to take care of him, and how hard it was for Bifur to be taken care of when his memory wasn’t touched in the slightest—and his brother—and how torn Bofur was between pride for the sheer number of niblings and despair for how impossible it was for Bombur to support them alone—and how much Bofur dearly, deeply hated mining.

And somehow or other, Bofur had learned about Dori—and how badly it hurt when he shoved Nori away, no matter how many times he did—and Ori—and how proud she was of her little brother, of his mind, of the fact that he actually had a chance to pull himself out of the pit she and Dori were stuck in—and how tired she was of running. Of fighting. Of being sneered at by her brother and leered at by men who thought they could own the famous thief, being reviled and revered alike for her reputation. Of living a lie.

Nori couldn’t even remember ever having a conversation with Bofur that he didn’t monopolize, or that lasted more than a handful of minutes. More than once, they’d gone years without so much as seeing one another, though that never seemed to matter.

But as he finished chewing and launched into a tale about a bar fight he’d been in (that she’d been in, too, actually, and she didn’t remember it being half as funny), keeping one eye on her in the near-unnoticeable way he watched his kin, she thought maybe they were friends after all.

Dwalin and Belda were in easy sight of her, the latter sandwiched between her father and Fíli as they listened to and laughed at Bofur’s story. Kíli was on Fíli’s other side, and every so often, he and Belda stole glances at each other—never when the other was looking, of course—then looked away, blushing. Fíli looked as exasperated with the two of them as Nori felt; Nori made a mental note to have Fíli help her maneuver them together at some point.

But Nori knew, a few days earlier, it would have been Kíli sitting beside Belda, not Fíli, and they would have been sweet together as usual. Those two were going to end up properly in love if they weren’t careful. But Nori thought that would be a good thing; Belda steadied Kíli even as she made him bolder, and he softened her even as he supported her. They were a good fit, as good as Fíli and Ori were together.

Against her will, Nori’s eyes flicked to Dwalin as he smiled tenderly down at Belda, and for an instant, she imagined herself tucked under his arm, sharing his heat, being the recipient of his smiles. Just as quickly, she wrenched her eyes away and banished the image. It was a fool’s dream.

But she couldn’t help dreaming it that night, and the next, and the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idiots in love. They're all idiots in love.  
> 1) Thranduil’s wife’s name is nowhere in canon, so I picked one myself. ‘Aerlinn’ means ‘sea-song’ (or holy song, but I’m going with ‘sea’). But really, a life-size statue of a woman wearing a crown? Not that many people it could be. 2) As many problems as I have with Peter Jackson’s version of events, there are bits I like. Gandalf and Bilbo’s shared flash of Sauron is one of them. 3) The image of a Company full of battle-hardened Dwarves—all of them between six inches and a solid foot taller than her and all of them at least twenty pounds of muscle heavier (and when she’s only forty pounds soaking wet, that’s a lot)—being intimidated by her amuses me. (Also, those are smart Dwarves; she’s deadly and they know it.) 4) I’m ambivalent on Bofur/Nori (although that’s not going to happen in this story), but I like the idea of them being friends from way back.   
> À Lundi!


	30. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into the Woods

Belda watched Gandalf’s form shrink into the distance until it was too small to see, despite how the rising sun assaulted her eyes. Once he was gone, and only then, she turned to face the forest again.

Even the thought of going inside made her tail lash and her claws flex—catching herself, she deliberately regrounded herself in her Hobbit-form—and they were about to spend weeks in its depths. If she were a bit more afraid of the wood and less afraid of the Company, she’d tell them that she could fly them all over it in eight weeks, or carry them around it far more quickly than their tiny legs could manage. If she were just a bit…

But she could imagine their reactions too well. She’d never been more afraid of Dwalin than the moments after she told him the truth, before he decided it didn’t matter. For a heartbeat, not that she would ever tell him, she’d been genuinely afraid that he would strike her down. Fortunately, he loved her too much—and she’d only grown to love him more in the days since then—but the rest of the Company had no such limitation.

She trusted Dwalin more than anyone else in the Company, and his expression—his scent—had been hateful—and fearful—enough to make her doubt him. The others had no reason, no ties to her that would change their minds. If she told them…

She’d had several nightmares over the last week of exactly that.

So she couldn’t tell them, which meant that either they could lose the only opportunity they had this year, or she could grit her teeth and follow them into the Mirkwood. The name suited it perfectly, although as far as she was concerned, there was no name in Westron that could possible convey just how abhorrent it truly was.

The next few weeks were going to be like walking—living—inside the ring. She wanted to vomit just at the thought. If she didn’t have something to occupy her while they were inside, she’d be hard-pressed not to lose what little sustenance she had on a daily basis. But what could…

Thorin caught her eye as he stood in conference with Dwalin and Balin, standing on the edge of the wood. All three of them Durins.

Fætur Eldfreyja. Yavanna save them all.

But it did give her an idea. Quickly, she made her way through the tangle of Dwarves in between her and her commander, pausing to grab her pack—

And then coming to an abrupt stop as it proved to be significantly heavier than she’d expected. Shaking her head, she left it for the moment and continued on toward the three elder Dwarves.

Thorin was saying something about ‘weed-eaters’ as she approached; she didn’t feel the slightest shame in interrupting him. “Thorin.”

He gave her a look that was half-chiding, half-offended, and turned back to the others. “If we—”

“Thorin.” Dwalin bit his lip against a smile; she didn’t let herself look at him, too focused on keeping her serious expression.

With no small amount of annoyance, he turned to her. “What?”

“Can we talk?” She sent an apologetic glance at Dwalin—he waved it off—but she had a feeling Thorin would rather not have his authority questioned in earshot of his men.

He had other ideas, evidently. “Whatever you have to say, you can say here. And quickly, I hope.”

If that was how he wanted to play it, then. “I think I should take the lead in the forest.”

He blinked at her for a moment, as did Balin; Dwalin shared their surprise for a blink, then began visibly considering it. “You?”

“Yes.” She kept her back straight and her shoulders squared as she spoke, and made sure she did so evenly and clearly; anything that would add to his impression of her competence would help. “I have the best eyesight in the Company, my night-vision is improving daily, I have better ears than most of the Company, and a better sense of direction than you or yours.”

Thorin straightened, expression hard; she was close enough, though, to pick up the notes of embarrassment in his scent. “None of which is enough to make me put a child in the most dangerous position.”

She raised a brow. “Not alone, but together, I should think it is. And in any case, how can any position be more or less dangerous than any other when we could be attacked from literally any side?”

His jaw clenched under his beard, but his glare did nothing to hide the fact that he couldn’t disagree. Dwalin nodded in the corner of her eye. “I agree with her.” Thorin looked incredulously at him, but he didn’t falter. “I’ll be right behind her in any case, but this is different terrain than we’re used to. I’d rather she led the way than anyone else in the Company.”

Slowly, Balin nodded as well. “She makes a good case, Thorin. And she’s hardly defenseless.”

If anything, Thorin’s glare darkened as he looked between his cousins, but Belda kept her head high as he turned it on her; his scent spoke of hurt, concern, and fear, all of it creating turmoil he didn’t allow to show. His turmoil strengthened for a few moments as she held his eyes, then abruptly faded as he came to a decision. “Get your pack. We move out in five minutes.”

His words alone didn’t indicate what he’d decided either way, but the fact that fear moved to the forefront of his scent—in a manner of speaking—did. Even as she was touched that he was so concerned about her safety, she grinned and obeyed gladly.

Until she actually had to put on the pack, that is. She had to sit in front of it to actually pull it on, then promptly toppled over when she tried to stand. Growling under her breath, she rolled to the side and pushed herself upright again, only to see a hand extended to her before she could even try to stand on her own.

Brows jumping up, she followed it up to Thorin’s face, sober despite the amusement in his scent. A smile pulling at her lips, she took hold of the offered hand with both of hers; to her irritation, he pulled her up without any visible effort on his part. “It’ll get lighter soon enough.”

Grabbing hold of his arm again as she nearly lost her balance, she growled, “Whoever gave me an equal share of the weight—”

“They didn’t.” Alarmed, she looked up at Thorin, who wasn’t even trying to hide his amusement now. “I told them to distribute it fairly, not equally. You have half the load as the rest of us.”

Her jaw dropped at that, but a quick glance around them proved him right; everyone else’s packs bulged with their burdens, and since she had the smallest pack in any case, it made quite the difference. That didn’t mean she enjoyed being reminded that she was so much weaker than her pack. “Fætur Eldfreyja og Tennur Tauron,” she muttered, “how strong are you all, anyway?”

Thorin raised a brow. “We make our livings as miners, smiths, and archers, in Kíli’s case.”

All of which were professions that required a good deal of strength, while she’d only begun building her own strength since she met the Company. She bobbed her head to the side. “Good point.” His brow quirked higher. “You’re right this time; don’t let it go to your head.”

He didn’t make a sound, but she was still holding onto his arm; she felt him shake with a silent laugh. “In any case, you’ll have to keep a good pace. If you can’t, I’ll have Nori head the line.”

Nori had good eyes, and better instincts. Belda nodded. “That’s fair.”

“That easy?”

“Of course.” She grinned at him. “I won’t go slowly.”

Huffing, he shook his head. “Just do your best.”

“Always.”

He huffed again at that, but sobered quickly, looking at the forest. “It’s hard to believe it could be as dangerous as Beorn insists.”

“What?” She squinted up at him incredulously. “If anything, he underestimated it.”

Thorin’s brows drew together in confusion as he looked down at her. “It’s only a forest.”

“That is an abomination, and I swear it’s watching me.” Shivering, she hitched her pack up.

Thorin glanced between her and the wood, then repeated, “It’s a forest.”

For a moment, she could hardly believe that he could be so blind. Then she remembered that he was a Dwarf. “Not to a Hobbit.”

“Then what is it to a Hobbit?”

She paused, giving the question the consideration it demanded. She couldn’t use the ring as an example, obviously, or allude to anything draconic. Slowly, she shook her head. “It’s something… ancient, and evil, and hungry.” She shivered again, and said with the utmost sincerity, “I’d rather face a dragon here and now than go in there.”

“You’ve never seen a dragon.”

“You can’t feel that place like I can.”

They held each other’s eyes for a few moments, neither willing to concede the point, but dropped it in a silent agreement to agree to disagree. She’d already filled her water-skins (Beorn had given them all an extra each in addition to the bows and arrows; she hadn’t asked where he’d gotten them, but hers did have a faint scent and taste of Orc-blood about it) at the spring, so she spent the few minutes before they headed out listening to Thorin, Dwalin, and Balin rehash all Beorn’s warnings and instructions. She remembered most of them, but a few were new to her; there were also a few warnings he evidently hadn’t given the Dwarves, such as not to trust the squirrels, but she didn’t see the need to bring those up.

But soon—any time at all was too soon for Belda—they assembled at the gate. Belda couldn’t help but watch the trees suspiciously, but she saw Thorin nod to her out of the corner of her eye. “Lead the way.”

Nodding, she took a deep breath, hitched her pack up again, and moved forward. She heard Dwalin fall in step just behind her, and Thorin behind him, but her pulse in her ears drowned out the rest of the Company’s footfalls. The entrance that she and Gandalf had ventured into the day before was left quickly behind, and the forest proper proved to be a mass of twisting, grasping trees, cloaked with strangling vines and dark dense cobwebs, each strand as thick as her little finger.

The sunlight was choked out long before it reached the path, though for the first few hours that they walked, a brave ray of light stabbed down through the branches every so often. That ended quickly. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness more swiftly than the Company’s did, if the sound of half-trips and stubbed toes behind her were any indication, and her headache faded completely for the first time in weeks within a few hours of the sunlight completely disappearing.

The squirrels Beorn had spoken of were everywhere, little black fur-balls that darted to and fro above and around them, though none crossed her path. There was noise, as well, grunting and snuffling from some unseen animals in the distance, but none ventured close enough for her to see. It wasn’t hard for her to guess why.

What was more puzzling was why the cobwebs never crossed the path. They stretched alongside it, sometimes as far as the eye could see, but never crossed it, not under her feet, not overhead, so far as she could see. Maybe that would change further in, but for the time being, it was a puzzle. Was there some sort of Elvish magic keeping the path clear? She couldn’t feel anything, but that was no guarantee.

There was no wind—which made the creaking branches in the distance distinctly ominous—and the air was stagnant and stale. It clung to Belda’s lungs like a poison; it wasn’t long before she felt as though she were suffocating. But she wasn’t, obviously, so she gritted her teeth and forged on.

Night fell sooner than she expected, but long after she was ready to collapse. But she’d kept up the pace, Thorin couldn’t say she hadn’t. They made camp directly on the path, of course. They couldn’t risk losing it in the night. It was just wide enough for them to cluster together in a loose knot of dim shapes in the gloom, and Belda let her pack slip from her shoulders with a groan.

“Tired?” She could hear the smile in Dwalin’s voice, but she had no energy to answer him. Instead, she just slumped against him and let that be her response. He chuckled, but he sounded almost as tired as she felt. Regardless, he wrapped his arms around her and lowered them both to the ground where they stood, only taking off his own pack when he was sitting and she was in his lap.

Not for the first time, she thanked Eru Dwarves were so much larger than Hobbits, and Dwalin especially. She still felt a bit foolish curling up in her father’s lap like a fauntling, but she also felt safer there than anywhere else, and in a place such as this, she’d take what comfort she could. Even the Goblin tunnels were preferable to this. But if she were a Dwarf, or he a Hobbit, she would never have fit. She barely did anyway. If he were even a few inches smaller, she wouldn’t have fit, she’d have to sit beside him, under his arm, like she did with Kíli—

A dull flush rose under her skin at the thought of him. She wasn’t ashamed of falling asleep with him, or of the fact that he was her Mate, or even the fact that they’d been in the middle of the Company and everyone could see them. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t ashamed of anything to do with him.

She was, however, more than a bit mortified of her own thoughts when they’d woken up together. In the Goblin tunnels, she’d thought that she wasn’t sure if she’d ever even think about marriage again, though that had mostly been because she hadn’t been sure she’d survive the escape. But—

Well. She was definitely thinking about it. Waking up tangled in Kíli, his scent—their scent—surrounding her, and barely a inch from his beard, his jaw, his lips—and feeling something she was still too flustered to put a name to, even in the privacy of her thoughts, pressing against her leg—there’d been an instant when she hadn’t seen any reason not to claim him then and there.

Fortunately, she’d woken up completely an instant later and realized where they were and who was watching, and how bad an idea it was to do something like that yet in any case: she hadn’t even had her First Shift yet; she was not old enough to marry him.

Not to mention, it sounded like Dwarves had ceremonies like Men did. Hobbits had celebrations, of course, with flowers and nice clothes and all their friends and family there to witness their pledge to marry, but that wasn’t the wedding proper. That was just the public recognition of intent, and they hadn’t even begun doing that until a few hundred years previous, when Bree-Hobbits and Men began mingling more and the difference in customs became apparent.

No, the wedding— Well, her mother’s way of putting it was that there wasn’t a difference between the wedding and bedding. And a bed wasn’t really necessary. Hence the near-miss.

Honestly, they’d barely even kissed and she was already thinking of marrying him. Granted, they were Mates, so it was only natural, but still.

Although, maybe it had something to do with how close she was to her First Shift. It was an instinct, after all, even if it was more of a Hobbit instinct than draconic. In any case, that was not going to happen until after they’d gotten out of this Yavanna-forsaken forest, if not until they’d courted properly.

A quiet _crack_ caught her attention, and she lifted her head to squint in its general direction. Glóin was fanning a small flame higher, and it caught quickly, growing to a good-sized campfire within a few moments. Foreboding twisted at her gut, and she looked up at the sound of wings fluttering.

In another moment, dark grey and black moths—as big as her hand—swooped down toward the fire, nearly choking them with sheer numbers. They gave Belda a wide berth, but the rest of the Company wasn’t so fortunate; panicked cries spurred Belda into action almost before she knew what she was doing, and she darted away from the fire, then bolted toward it, using her momentum to send a thick spray of dirt over the logs. Thorin did much the same from the other side, cursing darkly in Khuzdûl, and in a handful of seconds, the fire was out again.

Holding herself still as she caught her breath, Belda watched the branches overhead, looking for any trace of the moths’ return. As it became clear that they wouldn’t come back unless the fire was lit again, she calmed, somewhat. The eyes watching her back, yellow and red and green and pale silver, kept her from relaxing entirely. Whatever creatures were above them, they were too high up for her to see them properly. All she could see was the glow of their eyes.

The pale ones were the worst. Bulbous and glistening, at once insectoid and reminiscent of the Hob-Goblin as he prepared to attack. Watching them, she felt cold, frozen where she crouched; her ear throbbed, sharp teeth digging into the tender flesh, cold hands around her throat, heavy as iron, cutting off her air, pressing, pressing, squeezing, and _something_ _touched her neck_ —

She scrambled away from the touch, unthinking, until she felt bark against her back, the rough realness of it jarring after, she realized, what had only been waking dreams. All at once, she realized that she was shaking, breath coming short and quick and shuddering. A half-sob escaped before she could stop it, and a dim shape rushed toward her and proved to be Dwalin. As he pulled her into his arms, he was shaking, as well, faintly, and she realized that it must have been him that touched her neck, trying to break her out of the dream.

She inhaled too quickly, the breath catching in her throat as tears sprang to her eyes and she clutched at his jacket. “I’m— s—sorry—y, Uh—Uhdad—”

His breath hitched, sorrow and grief and pain warring in his scent and making her tears all the more impossible to stop. “No, don’t you apologize, don’t you dare. You did nothing wrong, do you hear me, kit? Lakhad-naithê, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

He spent several minutes murmuring variations on the same, cradling her to his chest, one hand at the back of her head, the heel of his hand on the nape of her neck. She felt wrung out by the time she was able to stem her tears, and wretched for wasting so much water when she knew it would be scarce. After a few moments of silence, Dwalin and someone—she could tell it was one of the men, but was too tired to place the voice—had a quiet exchange in Khuzdûl.

Brows furrowed, she blinked open her eyes, surprised when it made no difference. With some difficulty, she extracted her hand from where it was sandwiched between her and Dwalin and waved it before her face, then brought it close enough to feel her breath on her palm. It was completely invisible in the pitch-darkness. But when she glanced up, the eyes were still there, glowing over their heads.

She frowned at them and ducked her head again; she didn’t like to look at them. But it was frustrating, to still be able to see them. Enough Hobbits had had nocturnal soul-forms, over the centuries, that the science of it was common knowledge, taught to fauntlings along with maths and poisons. If the creatures, whatever they were, could see—could find enough light in this blackness for their eyes to reflect it menacingly—then there was light here that she couldn’t see, that was too faint for her yet.

The last word stilled her thoughts. ‘Yet’, when she had no guarantee that her eyes would ever progress to such a point. Somewhere at the back of her mind—the same place where her need to protect her pack, to feel Kíli’s scruff on her lips, to stand as Thorin’s equal, all her most deeply-rooted instincts were founded—she felt herself teeter on the edge of a precipice, a choice, a threshold. She thought about how helpless she was in this night, how helpless her pack was, and leaned forward.

The sound of fumbling in the dark jolted her back to the present, Nori’s scent preceding her and joined by traces of Belda’s own. Belda wasn’t surprised, then, when Nori proved to be carrying the pack she’d dropped on the other side of camp. The smell of food abruptly reminded her of the hunger she’d been ignoring all day; she had to hold herself carefully still to keep from ripping it out of Nori’s hands.

Realizing she was slipping into her instincts again, she regrounded herself as Dwalin took the pack from Nori, using the familiar motions to give herself the patience to wait for Dwalin to portion the food out for them both; if she let herself choose how much food to take, she’d eat through all their supplies in a week.

As she and Dwalin ate, though, she realized what had been missing since they came to Mirkwood the previous day. She hadn’t caught the scent of any matur-dýr since the second day of riding. Other animals, types of animals that she’d never scented before, but matur-dýr smelled different than other animals, no matter whether they were birds or fish or mammals or even reptiles. Tauron’s influence, probably. She doubted anyone but a hunter would think to give them the ability to tell by scent whether an animal would be good to eat or not. And nothing in this forest was good to eat. It was in their scent, something… eitrað. She didn’t know a word for it in Westron, didn’t know if any other race even had a word for something that was like food, but not, that would make them ill if they tried to eat it— or worse, would fill their stomachs without nourishing them.

She hadn’t expected to find anything to hunt in a place that Gandalf and Beorn both spoke so fearfully of, but having it proven so conclusively was still sobering. Now there wasn’t even the possibility.

After they were both finished eating, Dwalin nudged her fully awake and murmured, “Do you feel able to lead again tomorrow?”

She considered it for a moment, but didn’t need longer than that. “Yes. I… I was surprised, earlier. I didn’t expect…” Remembering how real the memory of the Hob-Goblin had felt, she shivered, abruptly cold. “Now I know. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

He grunted, unconvinced. “At least you aren’t saying you’re fine now.”

“You know me too well.”

“Exactly.” She tried to laugh at that, but it stuck in her throat. Dwalin’s hold on her tightened reassuringly as he shushed her gently. A few fresh tears slid coolly down her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut, and she scrubbed a hand over her face, muttering curses in cracking Hobbitish. Softly, Dwalin began to sing one of the songs he’d sung on the way to Beorn’s, the one that fit so well into the old lullaby. This time, he sang it aloud, the words in rumbling Khuzdûl, but clear enough that she was able to recognize a handful of words, among them what she thought might have been the name: _Long Ago_.

The song was utterly unlike anything Hobbitish, and entirely different from anything that might remind her of darker memories. Sometime during the second repetition of the song, she slipped into peaceful sleep, secure in the instinctive knowledge that her presence would dissuade any dýralíf that might threaten her pack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it begins.  
> Notes: 1) I don't think I realized until just now that Belda and Bella both had flashbacks about Gollum. Hopefully it's not too similar. 2) 'Lakhad-naithê' means 'my bright girl', 'matur-dýr' means 'food-animal', 'eitrað' means 'toxic', and 'dýralíf' means 'wildlife'.  
> P.S., Into The Woods is awesome and if you haven't heard it, you need to look it up. (Although, Sondheim has serious issues. Seriously, every single couple in the play ends up widowed or separated. Great music, though. Also, one of my favorite lines in any satire ever: 'I was raised to be Charming, not sincere'.)  
> À demain!  
> (P.P.S., seriously, though, at the very least, look up the 2014 Agony scene; it's hilarious!)


	31. Thorin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the penny drops.

Despite Belda’s brief battle-dream, she slept deeply enough to need to be shaken awake in the morning. Thorin had taken the last watch of the night, and spent a quiet minute watching his Company as the light returned.

Fíli and Kíli slept beside one another as usual, but Kíli had one arm splayed out to the empty ground on his other side, his frowning face turned to the same spot, and Fíli was holding Ori’s hand across the space that separated the two of them.

Ori was beside his brother, who had a protective arm slung over his charge. Nori was a small distance away from the both of them, but was positioned in such a way that she would easily be able to spring to their defense if need be.

Bifur was sitting up, propped up against a tree; Thorin knew that the axe bothered him at times, the old wound throbbing painfully unless it was sufficiently elevated. Bofur was on the ground beside his cousin, his brother on his other side. Bombur was a naturally early riser, and as usual, was the first to wake; he met Thorin’s eyes, but only gave him a small nod and watched his relatives for a few moments.

Óin talked in his sleep, far more quietly than when he was awake, but the Company knew by now to sleep a ways from him. Glóin, on the other hand, often couldn’t sleep unless he was within earshot of his brother. Thorin had seen Lemli fall asleep once not long after Gimli’s birth, and had heard her start to mumble in her sleep as well; Glóin denied it, but Thorin had his suspicions.

Balin was near Thorin, one hand on his sword and brow furrowed. He never slept well away from his brother, at least while they were traveling together. And Dwalin…

Dwalin was still where Belda had scrambled the night before, on the other side of the path from Balin, nearer the -ris than anyone else. He was lying on his side, curled around Belda as she slept in his arms. Thorin didn’t understand how she could sleep like that; her head was tucked under Dwalin’s chin, tilted to the sky, her body twisting around so that most of her was facing her father, her legs drawn up to her chest, and both of her arms were extended toward her back, one forearm lying in the curve of her waist, the other arm fully stretched out behind her. It looked immensely uncomfortable, but somehow she was asleep regardless, and deeply, at that.

She woke reluctantly, but was alert enough by the time she finished eating that he had no compunctions about letting her lead the way again.

To his surprise—and Fíli’s—Ori approached Thorin as they prepared to move out. “As Belda has been officially recognized as Nâthu-id-Zadkhu-Fundin, does she have the King’s permission to learn the language of her father’s forefathers?”

It wasn’t quite the formal phrasing that Balin would have used, but it was well done for Ori’s level of apprenticeship. Balin, beside Thorin, seemed torn between approval and constructive criticism. Belda, waiting on the path at the edge of the Company, was looking between Thorin and Ori, wide-eyed.

Thorin considered her for a long moment. She wasn’t a Dwarf by any means, but Thorin didn’t doubt her loyalty to Dwalin, nor her loyalty to the pack. He’d believe that she would willingly leave the Company when Hobbits flew. He also trusted her ability to keep the knowledge secret; if anything, she kept secrets too well. And most of all, he trusted Dwalin. He didn’t always agree with Dwalin, but he trusted him.

He nodded. “She does. Those who would teach, teach her well.” Murmurs of acknowledgement rippled through the Company; as Ori moved to walk directly behind her, Thorin caught his arm. “Speak quietly. Anyone could be listening.”

He inclined his head and Thorin released him. As he had the previous day, Thorin fell in step behind Dwalin, Balin behind him. As the next-youngest in the Company, he would have placed Kíli (and Fíli) in the center of the group if he could have, where they would be safest, but as the two with the keenest senses besides Belda’s, they were better suited to the rear-guard. He could hear them speaking quietly among themselves as they walked, but he knew that Kíli walked with his bow in hand, and Fíli kept her hand on her hilt. They were as safe as he could keep them.

For nearly a fortnight, the days passed similarly. With every day that passed, the Company grew more tense, more irritable, more heartily sick of the endless trees and constant, unseen eyes watching them. A handful of days in, Bombur and Bifur had the idea to try their hand at hunting the black squirrels that skittered at the edge of sight, and Thorin saw Belda’s struggle for the first time.

She had grown more uneasy with the rest of them, but had abstained from any complaint or other expression of discontent, falling markedly silent whenever the conversation turned to griping. The only outward sign of irritation she showed was to rub at her eyes more often as the days dragged on. That is, until Bifur had the bright idea to throw his spear at a squirrel in the distance. Belda spun on him with a snarl that had Thorin’s hand falling to his sword before he knew what he was doing; he’d seen her fight, but he’d never once thought before then that she might pose a threat to his Company.

She stopped just short of lifting a hand to Bifur and wrenched her eyes away from him, then screwed them shut and rolled her shoulders in a tic that Thorin realized he’d seen her perform once or twice before. When she opened her eyes again, she was only marginally more wild-eyed than usual, and spoke calmly, if scathingly, to the cousins.

The Company had to wait while she retrieved the spear, which took several minutes. The sounds of wildlife that lurked constantly on the edge of perception grew louder as she walked away from them, and for several seconds, Thorin readied himself for an imminent attack.

But the sounds faded again, retreating to their usual distance as Belda rejoined the Company, spear in hand. It didn’t take any great intelligence to infer that somehow, through some Hobbity magic or other means, she was repelling the creatures. As she returned the spear to Bifur, she reminded them all that Beorn had specifically warned them that nothing in the forest was good for food or drink, and that trying to hunt regardless would only be wasting their efforts. It wasn’t until Bombur grumbled something about not knowing until they tried that Thorin understood Belda had been reminding herself as much as the Company.

It was only to be expected, with how much Hobbits ate. But somehow, he’d forgotten. As she ripped Bombur’s argument to metaphorical shreds, Thorin realized that her face was thinner than when they’d entered the wood. Not drastically, but enough to sharpen her features, which also had the effect of making her expressions all the fiercer. Her lecture was cut short after a minute, rather than through any outside interference, by Belda herself cutting herself off with the same tic as before, rolling her shoulders and clenching and unclenching her hands. They continued on, and no one suggested hunting again.

But as the days went on, Thorin noticed that tic more and more often, soon eclipsing the Company’s audible complaints. A part of him was relieved that she had such control over herself, unnerved as he had been by her sudden, deadly rage. A much larger part was ashamed of himself for distrusting a member of his Company, especially one that had risked her life to save his. But the smaller would not be banished.

Just shy of a fortnight into their journey through the wood, they came across a broad stream, the broken edge of a stone bridge on the shore. Kíli tossed a twig in, which was swept away with enough strength and speed to banish any thought of swimming across, even if Beorn hadn’t warned them of the water’s enchantment. Vines tangled from the shore into the murk on one side of the bridge; Thorin eyed them dubiously, unsure of their strength.

Grimacing, he opened his mouth to order Belda to climb across if she could, but paused as he realized he didn’t know where she was. A few moments’ searching was all that was necessary to find her, though, crouched on the water’s edge beside the bridge, frowning at the murk. Thorin followed her gaze; he could just make out the other shore if he squinted, but it was thirty yards, at least. He thought what she was looking at specifically was a dim blob of some sort, but between the distance and the murk, he had no idea what it was.

“Do we have enough rope?”

He started at her voice. Processing the question, he frowned at her. “For what?”

She raised a brow. “The boat.”

“What boat?”

At that, she squinted incredulously at him. “You were looking at it, too— what do you mean, ‘what boat’? It’s right there!”

She gestured to the blob; Thorin’s frown deepened. “That’s too far.”

“Twelve yards is too far?”

“Twelve?” His brows shot up. “I thought it was closer to thirty.”

She just stared at him for a long moment, one eye twitching. “How have you never walked off a cliff?” Huffing, he waved Fíli closer. “No, I’m serious, how blind are you?”

He was a tad glad that she’d rediscovered her sense of humor, but he’d have greatly preferred not to be the butt of the joke. “Fíli, collect rope from everyone. We need fifteen yards worth, at least.”

Fíli nodded and moved off; Kíli moved closer, coming to a halt directly behind Belda, and squinted toward the boat. “I think I can see it, drawn up on the bank?”

Belda nodded and stood; in the doing, she took a half-step back, so that her back was against Kíli’s chest. Thorin had been about to turn away, but looked at them disbelievingly as he noticed. When had this started? And it clearly wasn’t a new development; one of Kíli’s arms wrapped around her waist as he watched, pulling her more fully against him as he bent his knees, and she squirmed for a scant moment, straightening slightly so that the top of her head slotted neatly under Kíli’s chin, which he rested on her hair as their free hands intertwined.

Her expression relaxed—eyes falling half-lidded—only fractionally, but more than he’d seen with anyone but Dwalin since they entered the forest. He almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. In the Misty Mountains had been one thing—she’d been soaked to the skin and without a fire, sharing heat with one of the Company was the only option—and they’d fallen asleep together on the way to Mirkwood, but that had been a fluke, an innocent mistake!

Hadn’t it?

It seemed it hadn’t. He’d noticed the flustered distance between them fading as they journeyed over the last few days, but he would have noticed something like this, no matter how distracting the forest’s dangers were. But while there was nothing unchaste about their pose, it wasn’t quite innocent, either. That was not how platonic friends behaved.

One of the Company coughed—he couldn’t be sure who—and the two dear-Eru-let-them-not-be-lovers startled apart, Kíli pulling her further back from the water before releasing her in a clearly-instinctive move to protect her. If there’d been any doubt as to how long they’d been hiding this, the half-guilty, half-bashful expressions on their faces dispelled it. Slowly, he turned his head to see Fíli, Dwalin, Ori, Nori, Bifur, and Bofur watching him warily, while the others goggled at the scene. It was anyone’s guess who had been the one to warn the two, but obviously more than a few had been helping them keep it from him.

Kíli’s expression firmed slightly, giving Thorin just enough warning to raise a hand as he opened his mouth. The gesture forestalled his words as Thorin had hoped it would, but the words Thorin needed wouldn’t come. Sighing, he shook his head and looked to Fíli. “You have the rope?”

She relaxed a fraction, clearly understanding that he wasn’t going to press the matter yet, and held it up. “Thirty yards, altogether, and a hook from my pack.”

He nodded. “Well thought of. Kíli.” He straightened, swallowing nervously; Belda’s slight change in stance—to a position more suited to defend Kíli—was subtle, but Thorin noticed it anyway, and she met his eyes unflinchingly. After a moment, he looked away, toward Kíli again, and jerked his head toward the boat.

Catching his meaning, Kíli took the rope and moved to stand beside Belda again.

Thorin cleared his throat pointedly.

Stilling, Kíli glanced at him, then took a few steps toward him, away from Belda, before facing the other shore again. He squinted into the murk for a moment, then flung the hook forward.

It splashed audibly—though not loudly, thank Eru—and Belda shook her head, looking over the water. “A couple feet further and you would have dropped it onto the boat.” She glanced at the water, crouched, tilted her head, then looked up at Kíli. “I doubt the enchantment is strong enough to pass through wet rope.”

Kíli huffed, half-smiling, and shook his head as he coiled the rope again. “I hope you’re right.”

The smirk she shot up at him was playful, and communicated ‘of course I am’ as clearly as if she’d said it aloud. Thorin couldn’t see the look Kíli sent her in return, but Belda’s smirk evened out into a full smile, though it was still small. But without any prompting, they both turned back to the task at hand, and Kíli threw the hook again, this time with quite a bit more force. “You overshot the boat by a fair bit, but the rope’s crossing it; see if you can pull the hook onto it.”

As Kíli drew the rope gently back, Thorin’s eyes followed the drips down to the ground, and he frowned at the impacts they made on the dirt. There was something wrong with how they fell, not like water, though he wasn’t sure what else it could be. But still, the liquid seemed denser than it should be, more viscous.

After a minute, Belda half-stood. “Careful, it’s on the boat!”

Kíli grinned, though Thorin could see the tenseness of it. “Let’s pray it catches, then.”

After another few seconds, it did. Kíli blew out a relieved breath as Belda straightened up fully, smiling proudly at him. It only took her a second to remember Thorin’s presence and sober again, though. Holding his eyes, she inclined her head and moved away, back toward the Company. Fíli and Ori stepped forward as Kíli began fruitlessly pulling, but between the three of them, they pulled it free before Thorin could offer his help as well. The suddenness of its release sent all three of them toppling over backwards, and Thorin was only just quick enough to catch the boat as it hurtled toward them.

A thin rope was dangling from the opposite end as they’d hooked, and Thorin raised a brow at it. “So it was tethered.”

Balin hummed from where he was helping the youths to their feet. “It’s a good job our rope was the stronger.”

Thorin looked the boat over more carefully; it was smallish for an Elven vessel, but large enough for four Dwarves, or Hobbits. “Who’ll cross first?”

Thorin glanced at Belda where she was standing with her father, his arms crossed in front of her in a manner somewhat similar to how Kíli had been holding her, except with much less caressing. “You and I, and Dwalin and Nori. Fíli, Kíli, Óin, and Balin next, then Ori, Dori, Bifur, and Bofur, and Glóin and Bombur last.” Each group would have at least one capable warrior in it, to counterbalance the weaker of the Company.

And there would be no canoodling couples, either.

Bombur grumbled under his breath, but subsided when Thorin glared at him. He obviously had to be in the smallest (and therefore lightest) group, and if he couldn’t see that, he was a fool. And if he didn’t like it, he could go on rationing his food after they were out of the forest. No one was forcing him to eat so much.

Belda was eying the boat with visible trepidation. “We don’t have oars. How are you going to send it back and forth?”

Before Thorin could answer, Kíli grinned at her. “I can fix that. Fíli, where’s the rest of the rope?”

Fíli rolled her eyes at Kíli’s grandstanding at the same moment that Thorin did, but the Company handed over the rope quickly; there was only one option, and it was one that they’d all used (or seen used) at some point or another and thus, required no explanation. He threw the hook far and high, and pulled firmly on it; when it didn’t come crashing down, he smiled, clearly pleased with himself.

He turned to Belda, but she spoke before he could. “A tow line. And then we’ll leave the rope hooked into the boat so whoever’s on this side can pull the boat back.”

Thorin blinked at her; he’d forgotten about her experience with such things, but clearly, the ‘physics’ she’d mentioned at Beorn’s lent itself to the situation. A moment later, he glanced at Kíli, half-expecting him to be disappointed at the loss of a chance to impress her, but he was smiling at her as proudly as she had at him when he first hooked the boat.

Thorin looked between them for a moment. This was more serious than he’d thought. He’d known they were friends, but it hadn’t occurred to him until that moment that their friendship would make any romantic inclinations they had all the deeper.

At least he knew Dís had already given both children the talk. They’d been thirty and thirty-five and had come running to him for confirmation that the ridiculous things their Amad had told them had actually been true. They hadn’t been especially pleased at the time to learn that it was.

He cleared his throat at almost the same moment that Dwalin cleared his; for a moment, he held his old friend’s eyes, sharing a look of commiseration. Glancing between him and Belda, Thorin nodded to the boat, gratified when Nori came forward without prompting. Nori took the boat with a somewhat-sarcastic little bow and gripped the edge of it to hold it still as the others stepped in; Thorin took the seat at the bow, of course, and called for Kíli to toss him the tow rope. The Elven rope had been tied to a small loop set into the prow, and Thorin tied the end of their line in the same spot, to ensure it wouldn’t fall away as they pulled the boat back after he and the others debarked.

Dwalin and Belda had a quick, quiet exchange—Dwalin seemed dismayed about something—then Dwalin lifted her into the boat. The hints of anxiety Thorin saw in her face as she was airborne grew into full-blown panic as the boat rocked under her feet, and she gripped Dwalin’s arms with enough force to lift herself into the air again. Sympathetic agony in his face, Dwalin stepped into the boat himself, cradling her to his chest as he did, and murmured softly to her as he sat. Nori set the boat rocking slightly as she stepped in, and Belda clutched desperately at Dwalin as though he were all that stood between her and certain death.

Through it all, she didn’t make a sound, only grew more pale and distraught, and Thorin had to deliberately put her out of his mind as he began towing them to the other side. As soon as there was enough slack in the line, he tossed it back to Nori so she could do her part; he’d meant for Dwalin to help, as well, but by the way Belda was visibly shaking, that wasn’t about to happen. Nori looked concerned, as well, or at least more concerned than she usually was for anyone but her brothers.

It only took a minute to reach the other side, and Thorin drew his bow as soon as he set foot on solid ground, arrow at the ready in case anything took advantage of their momentary vulnerability. Dwalin set Belda on the ground beside and nearly behind Thorin, and this time he was close enough to hear the exchange.

“All right?”

“No, I’m fine, I just…”

Dwalin half-growled, the sound nearly obscured under Nori beginning to shove the boat into the water again. “Why didn’t y—”

Nori interrupted with a drawl that didn’t quite mask the worry in her voice, “What are you two talking about?”

Dwalin began to answer, but was shushed by Belda as a pure white stag moved into view further down the path, a rare patch of sunlight giving its fur an ethereal glow. It looked toward them with quietly-inquisitive dignity. Thorin looked at it and his stomach growled. Slowly, trying not to spook it, he drew the arrow back to full draw.

Behind him, Belda murmured, “What are you…”

In an instant, he lifted the bow up to take aim at the stag; before he could loose it, the bow was shoved up and a vicious, snarled, “No!” rang through the trees.

The sound sent nearby wildlife into a minor cacophony of flight, and close as it was to Thorin, nearly stopped his heart with pure, instinctive fear. It wasn’t until his eyes fell to the enraged Hobbit holding his bow that he realized it had been her voice.

For a single, maddening, ludicrous instant, he was terrified of this tiny girl, who had saved his life and sworn herself to his service, and who was, in that moment, utterly and hauntingly inhuman.

A splash jolted him out of his stupor an instant later, and he and Belda both whirled to look toward it, toward where Dwalin was falling to his knees at the water’s edge to vainly try to reach a partially-submerged Nori. Heart thudding into motion again, Thorin raced to his friend’s side, trying to think of something—anything—they could use to reach the thief. The current was pulling her away even as they watched, but her feet must have been dragging along the bottom, as she was moving far more slowly than she should have been. Her face was tilted to the sky, clear of water, at least, but it was too still, too pale.

Swearing under his breath, Thorin held the bow length-wise toward Nori, falling just short of hooking it under the strap of her pack; Dwalin grabbed at the bow, the motion nearly sending him tipping into the water as well, and Thorin had to shove him onto his back, safely away from the river.

A low, piercing whistle filled the trees as he did—for a split-second, Thorin thought that Beorn had somehow followed them into the forest; he’d heard that sound in the distance more than once while they stayed at his lodgings—and then hoofbeats thundered toward them. Reflexively, Thorin pushed to the side, further away from Dwalin, and fell to a sitting position on the side of the path, in a perfect position to see the stag he’d nearly felled lower its head to Belda as she swung onto its neck. Low, liquid syllables—not the language she and Beorn had spoken to each other, something he’d never heard before—fell from her lips as the hart trotted quickly forward, glancing uneasily at Thorin for a moment before she stroked its neck reassuringly, still murmuring in that strange tongue.

The stag stopped at the water’s edge just as Thorin and Dwalin had done. “Your bow.”

The terse words held the same command Thorin had heard before, and again he felt the slight separation from him, that he could resist if he wished it, but he held his bow up regardless.

She snatched it from his hand with a speed that would have offended him if he didn’t share her urgency, and scooted carefully forward as the stag lowered its head over the water. It wasn’t until she was nearly atop the stag’s head itself that the beast seemed bothered by her weight at all, and even then held steady as she leaned forward. The hart added a full two feet to her reach, the bow another foot, but even so, the bow fell just short of Nori; growling something Thorin guessed was a Hobbit curse, she hooked her feet under the stag’s antlers and leaned even further forward. The beast gave a quiet, distressed low, but only lifted its head a few inches to compensate for her weight; with the extra distance, she succeeded in snagging Nori’s jacket.

Relief clear in her tone, she gave a short command to the stag and it stepped back, away from the water; Thorin had no doubt that she wasn’t strong enough to pull Nori out alone, but then he realized that Belda had made herself a mere extension of the bow: the hart was taking all the weight. Within a few moments, the stag had dragged Nori close enough for Thorin and Dwalin to take hold of the bow and help pull; Belda released her hold and moved back, leaving the two of them to it.

Dwalin snatched hold of Nori’s arm once it was in reach with the same urgency with which Belda had snatched the bow, hauling her almost atop him before Thorin could say a word against the sheer foolishness of that: she was drenched and dripping; who was to say that wouldn’t be enough to affect Dwalin, as well?

Except that she wasn’t. She was bone-dry.

She was as limp as a rag doll through it all, and for a horrible instant, Thorin thought that she’d gotten water in her mouth after all, that she’d drowned in the seconds before they’d reached her. But she was breathing, though slowly, and Thorin realized that she was asleep. With dawning horror, he remembered the water’s enchantment, and looked bleakly at her as Dwalin tried to wake her. They’d have to carry her until she woke, or until they found a way to wake her.

As Dwalin’s efforts slowed to a stop, he looked slowly up at Thorin, the same bleak realization in his eyes. But there was a resolve there that Thorin didn’t understand, and a tenderness in how he laid her on the ground that made even less sense. Dwalin had never liked Nori; even learning ‘he’ was actually a woman hadn’t made a difference in how Dwalin treated her. What had changed?

The sound of the boat approaching reminded Thorin of the rest of the Company. Part of him was relieved to remember that Nori’s brothers were in the next load. Part of him was sickened by his own cowardice.

The first thing he saw as they came through the murk was Fíli and Kíli’s relieved faces as they pulled the boat closer. In another moment, their eyes fell to Nori and their expressions fell to sorrow. Balin and Óin were further back in the boat, but reacted in much the same way when they came into view; Thorin guessed that Kíli and perhaps Fíli had seen the incident, but not who had fallen. As they debarked, Kíli looked down the path and his jaw dropped; Thorin followed his gaze and realized that the stag was still there, standing calmly beside Belda as she murmured to it.

Even in the shadows, its fur nearly seemed to glow, and Belda, tiny and sylphlike beside it, with her catlike eyes and her pointed ears, and with bits of leaves and twigs caught in her hair after a fortnight of sleeping on the forest floor, seemed as ethereal as the hart, a forest sprite come to call. Thinking of how she’d protected the stag, and spoken to it as though it could understand her as Beorn’s animals understood him, and commanded it with the same effortless dignity as she’d directed Beorn’s beasts, Thorin wasn’t sure the impression wasn’t true.

Shaking his head, he looked to the Company and began directing them to help him move Nori to a position more comfortable for her and out of easy sight of the returning boat, when it came. Nori’s relationship with her brothers might have been complicated, but there was no denying that all three of them loved each other dearly. Anything that might soften the blow would be a mercy, and one that, for once, Thorin could offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, every time I use that quote, I just think of Mels setting up Amy and Rory. Every time.  
> Notes: 1) 'Nâthu-id-Zadkhu-Fundin' should translate to 'daughter of the line of Fundin', if I did it right. And despite some people's depictions, Tolkien actually specifically said that Dwarven children aren't taught Khuzdûl until they're old enough to both keep the secret and not try to change the language in the slightest. That's why it's still the same after thousands and thousands of years. 2) Huh, so the rope was dripping when Kíli grabbed it, but Nori was dry when she was pulled out. I wonder if that matters. 3) As much as I prefer the book, overall, I do like the part in the movie with Thorin ignoring Bilbo's advice and loosing an arrow at the stag (mostly because then he responds to Bilbo's statement that it would bring bad luck with 'we make our own luck', and then everything just immediately goes downhill. Oh, Thorin. You're so stupid.) so I had to include it here. Sort of. Seriously though, that entire scene is one giant train wreck. The book is so much better.  
> Fun fact, my original plan was for Dori to fall into the water, but then I realized the sheer angst in this scenario. (^u^)  
> À demain! (Or possibly à Jeudi. If I do a bonus update for Redamancy tomorrow, I probably won't update this, but I haven't decided either way yet. We'll see. Either way, à bientôt!)


	32. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment of silence for Nori, please. (Also Dwalin's will to live.)

The hart shifted his weight as the boat scraped onto the shore; his scent was understandably uneasy, and Belda shushed him softly, still murmuring nothings. Trying to communicate with a dýrið—whether it was a matur-dýra or eitrað like this stag—was like talking to a toddler: challenging at best and impossible without at least some sense of safety.

She’d learned already that the Elves—or as he referred to them, the _‘sharp-strong-fast chasers’_ —hunted the deer routinely for entertainment, but rarely for food in this area of the forest; evidently, there were matur-dýr further north, bred and raised for that exact purpose and kept—by _‘air-walls’_ —away from the dangerous areas of the wood so that the eitrað-dýr didn’t breed with or corrupt them.

She’d been asking him how far they were from the edge of the forest when the boat landed and he stopped responding. She didn’t look at the Company as they tried to break the news. ‘Tried’ being the operative word. Dori barely listened to a word before he hissed for them to move, voice tight and shaking. Ori didn’t seem to be hearing anything, as he kept weakly asking what was going on.

He didn’t stop until Dori let out a strangled cry and—by the sound of it—fell to his knees. Belda guessed they’d just seen Nori.

Ori didn’t say a word.

Fíli started crying.

Dori took a fast, gulping breath and growled, “What happened?”

For a moment, no one spoke. Quietly, Thorin answered, “She was startled and lost her balance.”

Belda flinched, hands clenching in the stag’s fur. Given when it had been, the only thing that could have startled Nori had been her, her voice, her stopping Thorin.

This was her fault.

She couldn’t look at them.

She couldn’t look at Nori.

She couldn’t think about it, she couldn’t— couldn’t—

The boat scraped on the shore and into the water again as Glóin or Bombur drew it across to them. The hart’s muscles rippled under her hands as he tried to obey and stay still, as she’d ordered him to do, and she resumed her nothings. She could do this. Forcing herself to focus on the hart, she felt him slowly relax again as she murmured, but she couldn’t help but listen to the Company with one ear.

“We can’t leave her here.”

“And we won’t,” Thorin vowed. “We’ll remake the boat into a slab, carry her until she wakes.”

Ori laughed, a short, harsh bark that was so unlike him it took Belda halfway through his sentence to realize it had been him. “And when will that be? Do you even know if she will wake up?”

“Ori,” Fíli’s voice broke; the name didn’t sound as though it was the end of the sentence, but she didn’t continue.

After a long, weighted moment, Dori weakly cleared his throat; his voice was barely more than a rasp. “Don’t s— he— they— they did ev… don’t be rude, Ori.”

Thorin murmured, “No, he has the right to ask that. Both of you do. No, Ori, I don’t know. But there is a possibility.”

The hart exhaled silently, a contented huff, and Belda realized he was in a mood to respond; determinedly, she didn’t listen to anything else the Company said. _“The dark not-water, it makes sleep. Long?”_

Beorn had been surprised when she spoke to his animals. The language that came naturally to her wasn’t any language of bird or beast, but they all understood it. To varying degrees according to the complexity (or lack thereof) of their thoughts, but she didn’t need to learn to speak every individual language as most shifters did. She did, however, have to relearn how to understand most individual languages, but her Da had taught her most of them as a child and the rest were similar enough to the others that it didn’t take her long to learn.

Most animal languages, though, they weren’t half as loud as she’d thought as a child. Birds were the loudest, and even they were quiet when they didn’t need to shout across a field. Mammals were far quieter, their voices inaudible without Hobbit hearing.

There was no doubt that the Company couldn’t hear the hart. _“Fawn, not long. Hind, long. Hart, long-long.”_

She scowled. So the enchanted sleep lasted longer the larger the victim was. From the Elves’ standpoint, it made perfect sense—the more dangerous the intruder, the longer they’d be vulnerable—but it wasn’t good news by any means. _“Long-long many days? A season?”_

 _“Moon to half-moon.”_ A fortnight. Not ideal, but… but a hart was a good deal larger than a Dwarf.

_“Hind, long many days? Moon to half-moon?”_

_“Half-moon to narrow-moon.”_

Only a week or so. If she understood him correctly. There wasn’t actually a guarantee of that, but still. _“From not-water to valley-gate, on stones, moon to half-moon?”_

He snorted, tossing his head. _“On stones, half-moon to narrow-moon.”_

So their travel speed was around twice what the Company had been managing. _“From not-water to dawn-gate, on stones, half-moon to narrow-moon?”_ He huffed in confirmation. _“The not-water sleep…”_ How to ask if it was ever fatal? Her throat closed just thinking about it, but she had to know, one way or the other. _“Endless?”_

He tossed his head again, an absolute denial. She slumped against his side in her relief; behind her, Ori asked disbelievingly, “What are you doing?”

After a few moments when no one answered him, Belda realized the question had been for her. She looked over her shoulder, still not sure, but Ori—and nearly all the rest of the Company—was staring straight at her. Ori’s eyes were red-rimmed, as were Dori’s. It wasn’t an answer, Belda knew, but she couldn’t do anything in that moment but try and comfort her friend. “Nori’ll sleep for about a week, that’s all. She’ll wake on her own.”

Her voice shook as she spoke; she sent a silent prayer to Eru that they hadn’t heard, hadn’t heard the guilt she felt.

This was her fault.

But deer were nowhere near intelligent enough to follow any steps to wake each other if they fell in. The only explanation was that the enchantment would wear off naturally.

Dwalin’s shoulders slumped in tangible relief; Kíli tilted his head in curious bafflement. “How do you know?”

The rest of the Company didn’t look quite so trusting; their expressions were a spread of distrust and skepticism. For an overwrought moment, she wanted to snarl at them until they recognized her authority, her right t—

Deliberately, she rolled her shoulders before she answered, but couldn’t banish her irritation—or her heartache—entirely. “I asked.”

Dwalin nodded slightly, looking blankly at the stag, though she could tell from the way he was holding himself that he wanted to look at Nori; Kíli looked even more curious than before; Thorin looked almost wary; the rest’s skepticism deepened. Fíli frowned deeply as she questioned, “It talks?”

The doubt in her tone—not only of what Belda said, but of her sanity, or so Belda took it—riled Belda further, and she barely kept from snapping her teeth at her friend. She rolled her shoulders again, then clenched and unclenched her fingers—and toes, for good measure. “He is an animal. He doesn’t speak Westron, or any coherent language. But even animals have ways of communicating with each other. Beorn taught me.” It was half-true, anyway.

A few of the Company opened their mouths to question her further, but Dwalin spoke before they could, voice hoarse. “Did he say anything else?”

She shot him a grateful glance, feeling her wings tuck tightly against her back and her tail curl tensely around her feet. “We’re halfway through the wood, if we keep our pace.”

The sound of the boat returning sent a tremor through the hart, and she looked away from the Company for the sake of focusing on him. Glóin and Bombur exclaimed quietly when they saw Nori, but Thorin set Glóin to work, as well as Bofur and Kíli and himself, remaking the boat as he’d promised.

Calming the stag took several minutes, crafting the former-boat-now-carrier took several more, and by the time they heard the hunt passing to the north of them, it had been close to an hour since Belda and the other three crossed the river. The Company fell still and silent as soon as the distant horns sounded, their distrust of the Elves outweighing everything else; Belda was glad, as it meant when the hind and fawns appeared further down the path, Thorin was able to hiss at the Company not to move before they did something foolish.

For a few moments, Belda watched the Company, ready to add a command to Thorin’s if she needed to, but they settled, albeit reluctantly. Once she was satisfied of their restraint, she turned to the hind and whistled to her, more quietly than to the stag, but with how near she and the fawns were, Belda didn’t need to use any significant volume.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

When Belda whistled, Kíli was half-sure that the Elves would hear and come running, but the sound of their hunt didn’t return. That was no surety that they weren’t coming anyway, but it was somewhat reassuring, at least.

And it left him free to focus on Belda. Her whistle had seemed to fill him as well as the trees, resonating in his chest like a clap of thunder, and it only magnified the pull he still felt toward her.

The deer moved toward her as though they felt the same pull, as fluidly as though they were sleepwalking; she didn’t reach out to them as they neared, but did stroke her fingers over their heads and necks as the hind lowered her head to Belda and the two fawns nuzzled against her.

Kíli wanted to join her, to feel if the fawns’ fur was as soft as it looked, but he also didn’t want to scare the deer off. He was a hunter. He knew how skittish prey was. But there was something about the way she was moving that he couldn’t quite pin down, something that had changed, shifted, in the last few moments.

Maybe it was the way her fingers curled and uncurled as she ran them along the deer’s flanks, almost like claws. Maybe it was how her stance had shifted slightly, as though she was compensating for weight on her back though she hadn’t put anything new in her pack. Maybe it was the half-lidded way she was looking at them, eyes skating over them with an edge Kíli couldn’t decide was possessive or predatory. Or maybe it was the proud set to her shoulders and tilt of her head, when just a minute earlier she’d been so unsure as she looked at Ori.

At the edges of his vision, he was aware, distantly, of Thorin and Bofur and a few others in the Company far enough back to be only vague shapes while he couldn’t take his eyes off of her, all of them with postures and stances that conveyed hesitance and wariness. Distantly, he was aware that by all rights he should be the same, be unnerved by the change in her. And distantly, he was aware that if the deer hadn’t been there and so easy to scare away, he would have already gone to her and…

He wasn’t sure what he would do. At some point in the last few minutes, though he couldn’t point to any single moment, he’d started feeling as though he were half-asleep, his head thick and his thoughts sluggish, and thinking more than a few moments ahead was more difficult than it should have been. All he knew for certain was that his arms felt empty, his heart seemed to be pulling him toward her, and his lips tingled at the memory of their kiss.

Her eyes trailed lazily over the Company, no recognition in her expression, before she drew both adult deer closer and murmured to them. After nearly a minute, all four deer bowed low to her and charged the Company; Kíli heard the others diving out of the way behind him, but he stayed still and was rewarded with a brush of downy fur against his hand as one fawn darted past him. Not a one touched him more than that, though his hair blew back with the speed of their passing. An instant after he felt the fawn pass, he turned to look, just in time to see them spring over the gap in the bridge and disappear south-west into the forest.

“Heading for Beorn’s.” He only realized he’d spoken aloud when Belda answered him.

“As I told them to.”

Kíli watched Belda move closer, seeing the grace of her movements; the tingle in his lips spread to his tongue. Behind him, Thorin snapped, “Why?”

She shrugged, not the centering motion he’d seen her use any number of times, but a sinuous, easy gesture of languorous contentment. “We can’t eat them. Why not send them somewhere they won’t be hunted for no reason?”

On the last few words, her expression darkened, though the catlike quality to her motions didn’t fade; her eyes flicked north-west and narrowed as her ears twitched, listening to the Elves on their hunt, Kíli realized. But it was less than an instant before she closed her eyes and turned her face away from the hunt, centering herself with a quick roll of her shoulders. Her eyes and mouth opened at the same time, but her expression turned stricken in the instant before she turned to face the path again. Confused, Kíli turned to see where her gaze had fallen: on Dori, Nori, and Ori.

Still facing forward, she said tonelessly, “We should get moving.”

Automatically, he moved to walk with her, but a hand on his arm forestalled him; Thorin shook his head at him, eyes hard. “Walk with your sister. She needs you.”

As much as Kíli wanted to be near Belda, he couldn’t leave Fíli, either. Heart heavy, he inclined his head to his uncle and obeyed.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Dwalin was barely aware of the passage of time as he followed Belda. His thoughts never left Nori, though the subject varied.

At times, all he could think of was how she’d looked when he’d pulled her out, how lifeless she’d been.

At times, all he could think of was how wrong that was, that she should be lifeless when even in her quiet moments, she was so alive.

At times, he couldn’t stop thinking of all the times that there could have been more, if he hadn’t ignored the clues right in front of him, if he hadn’t held back when he finally realized, if he hadn’t kept his distance for the last weeks.

He’d held her in his arms, and she’d been nothing more than deadweight, lifeless and limp. He’d had so many chances to tell her, and now he might never have another.

No, he reminded himself, Belda had said that Nori would wake in a week or so.

But they were in Mirkwood, in constant danger. What if something happened? What if she died, or he died, and he’d never told her he loved her?

He stopped dead in his tracks for an instant. Thorin collided with his back and he muttered something incomprehensible to cover the slip as he began moving again.

Did he love her? He cared for her, he liked her, when she wasn’t antagonizing him, but did he love her?

…No, he didn’t.

But he very easily could.

Resolve sank into his bones, providing an anchor, however small it was compared to the onslaught of grief and anguish and dread assailing him. When she woke, he’d tell her she was his One. She deserved the choice, at least. He wouldn’t push if he wasn’t her One or she wasn’t interested, but she could hardly make any sort of decision if she didn’t know all the factors.

But that assumed that she would wake.

And despair clouded the world away again.

When Dwalin came back to himself, Belda was slowing to a stop in the near-pitch darkness. By the sound of multiple people settling down, he guessed that Thorin had called the Company to a stop, and a bit earlier than usual.

Though, with one of their number needing to be carried, it wasn’t so surprising; his heart twisted in his chest as he remembered Nori’s lifeless face.

But the sound wasn’t quite what he would have expected. “We should move a bit closer.”

It sounded as though they were at least ten paces away from the others; he shifted his weight to move back toward them, but stilled as he realized Belda wasn’t moving.

“Kit?” There was just enough light for him to make out her silhouette.

Just enough for him to see her almost-hide a flinch when Dori loudly snapped at Bombur for trying to take more than his fair share.

But he was wrong, he had to be. She wasn’t afraid of them. She couldn’t be. “Kit, they won’t chase you away.”

Her response was a mutter he wasn’t sure he’d been meant to hear. “Maybe they should.”

No, he couldn’t be understanding her correctly. He had to be misunderstanding, had to be mistaken. Between the forest, the hunger, and the trials of the day, he was more exhausted than he had been for years, and his thoughts felt sluggish. Of course he was mistaken. “What are you talking about? Kit, I’m too tired for this.”

At the last words, she flinched again, more severely, and this time, flinched away from him.

And that, that he knew he wasn’t misunderstanding.

Dread winding around his ribs, he set his jaw and picked her up; she stiffened, but didn’t fight him. Under the foreboding, he was worried about the implications of the way she was slumped against him, but that was secondary.

There was no way to tell whether he was still on the path or not—there was barely even enough light for him to avoid walking straight into a tree or a boulder—but he trusted her senses over the forest’s trickery. When he was a minute or so past the point of no longer being able to hear the Company, he stopped and turned completely around, facing the way they’d come.

“Can you still hear them?” Her nod was tiny, but he felt it well enough. “Good.”

Carefully, he knelt down and set her on her feet, straightening so that they were eye-to-faintly-luminescent-eye. Her eyes were glowing like the creatures in the trees, but they were easy to see in the dark, though he could barely make out the rest of her. He hadn’t actually noticed the glow before, but it was comforting, in a way. There were green-eyed creatures around, but none with her green. All he had to do was glance at her to know that she was there, and she was safe.

But he couldn’t put off the question any longer. “Why are you acting like we hate you?”

He still had his hands on her upper arms, and felt her stiffen an instant before she ducked her head, eyes down and away out of sight.

Heart twisting—she only avoided him like this when she was afraid of his reaction—he reached up and caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and gently brought her head back up to face him. He was firm, but she didn’t resist, really.

But her eyes gave off just enough light for it to reflect off the tear-tracks on her cheeks.

“No, answer me, kit. Why—”

“Because you should!” As if her shout had broken something loose, she burst into motion, shoving at his chest, striking whatever she could reach with all the force she was capable of, but none of the precision, and still insisting, “You should hate me, you should—”

Eyes burning, he wrapped his arms around her as she fought, refusing to fight back.

“Why don’t you hate me— Why won’t— You— you should— it— it’s— it’s my— my fault—” Slumping against him, she fell to her knees and buried her face in his chest, fists still twisted in his jacket. “It’s my fault. It’s my fault.”

Her tone was like nothing so much as when she’d told him what she was; this time, he couldn’t see her tears, but he could feel them soak into his shirt as she kept repeating those three words. Tired mind finally making the connection, he cut off her litany. “No, no, kit, what happened—”

Voice high and thick and trembling, she shook her head. “She fell because of me, because I shouted at Thorin—”

His arms tightened around her reflexively. “No, kit, don’t you blame yourself for that!”

“But I—”

“Did the right thing, stopping Thorin.” Not that Thorin would agree, but it was the truth nonetheless.

After a long, still moment, she shook her head again, weakly, and insisted, “No, if I hadn’t shouted at him, Nori wouldn’t have fallen!”

He couldn’t respond for a few moments, reliving those seconds again. If it hadn’t been for Belda, he’d have wished that he’d been the one to fall, if only so that he didn’t have to feel so like his heart was trying to twist itself inside-out whilst pushing itself out of his chest.

But he couldn’t wish that. Not with Belda in his arms, blaming herself. Who would take care of her if he’d been the one to fall? As close as she was to Kíli and Ori, Thorin and Dori were both still a bit mistrustful of her, and Fíli was being torn between her wants and her duty. Nori? Perhaps. But without being able to say for sure, he couldn’t wish that.

And besides, he was too old to think that there was ever complete certainty or culpability. “Maybe. But she was twisting around to look at us, that’s why she was facing up in the water; she was already off-balance when you shouted. Who’s to say that she wouldn’t have fallen anyway? Who’s to say that one of the others wouldn’t have fallen if they hadn’t been on guard because of what happened to Nori? Who’s to say Kíli wouldn’t have fallen,” her breath hitched; he began running his hand up and down her back, soothingly, “Or Fíli, or Ori?”

The thought of watching Nori go through what he was feeling made his gut roil; the thought of Ori going through what Belda was wasn’t much better.

Besides… “And because you stopped Thorin, you got that stag to help rescue Nori. We never could have gotten her out without anyone else falling in if you hadn’t. If you’d let Thorin kill the hart, who’s to say the—” He caught himself as his lips were beginning to form the words ‘pointy-eared weed-eaters’ and bit his tongue; the tiny burst of pain was enough to clear his head. “Who’s to say the Elves wouldn’t have heard the stag die and come to investigate?”

She huffed; he wasn’t sure whether it was a sob or a laugh, but either way, he suspected she’d caught his near-slip.

An almost-smile pulling at his lips, he released Belda and cupped her cheek, drawing her back far enough for him to hold her eyes resolutely. “Because you saved the hart, he told you how long Nori will sleep, and how long we have to go. Without that, we wouldn’t have a thimble’s worth of hope, and we’d have no way to know whether it would be a week or a year before we can get out of this bloody place.”

With a pained grimace, she shook her head. “That’s not important!”

Stilling, he could only watch her for a few moments. Was she truly so blind?

No, he realized with a pang. She was too guilt-stricken.

“Kit,” his heart twisted in his chest, “the only reason I’m sane right now is that I know she’ll be all right.” Belda’s eyes widened, but he felt the truth of his words settle into him. If the river had brought death instead of sleep, or if she were in a coma, he would be as insensible as when he’d thought Belda was dead. Shaking off the memory, he redoubled his firm tone. “If you hadn’t gotten that information from the stag, I wouldn’t be able to function.”

The light was fading further away, but there was still just enough for him to see her gape at him. “…You… but… y… what?”

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to sigh or laugh. Or sob. For the time being, he sighed. “You realized Kíli was your One—your Mate— at Beorn’s. I realized Nori’s my One.”

There was silence for several long moments, until the light was completely gone, to his old eyes. “…Really?”

Despite the bleakness of their situation, he had to chuckle at that, if only once. “Aye, kit. I would’ve realized decades ago if I hadn’t been a blind fool,” thinking of the sheer number of missed opportunities, he had to check the bitterness in his tone; thoughts turning to Nori herself, a wistful ache settled in his chest. “But she is.”

Squaring his shoulders, he met Belda’s eyes. “And when she wakes, I’m going to tell her that.”

It had been meant to be an encouragement, a display of certainty that everything would end well, but instead, her eyes widened, then filled with tears. “I never told her I forgave her— I did weeks ago, but I nev—er said— what if— what if she—”

Gently, but firmly, he grasped her shoulders. “She will be fine, Belda. She’s going to sleep for a week or so, and then she’s going to wake up, completely fine, and steal all our whetstones and flints in retaliation for the indignity of being carried around.”

A broken, tearful laugh left Belda, and he let himself pull her into a hug again. She latched onto him almost desperately.

“She’ll be fine, kit. You only have to last a week, and then she’ll be up and about and teaching you all sorts of things you both know I wouldn’t approve of.”

“I’m the Burglar; I need to know all that!”

“You’re going to be picking Smaug’s pocket, then?” Her silence spoke for itself; chuckling tiredly, he kissed the top of her head. “You might be her ‘kitten-burglar’, but you and I both know there isn’t going to be much burgling when we reach the mountain.”

Letting out a soft laugh, she nodded, wiping her eyes.

But as he remembered how the situation had changed in the last weeks, his heart fell. “Are you doing all right, kit? This forest is murder on all of us, but you’ve got your First Change in a few weeks; didn’t you say that would be hard on you, too?”

“First Shift,” she corrected. “But yes.” Sighing into his chest, she shook her head without moving away from him. “I forgot I was a Hobbit for nearly the entire time I was talking to the deer. When they told me what the Elves do to them, I nearly—”

Gripping his jacket more tightly, she shook her head again, more rapidly than before. A chill swept through him at the loathing in her reference to the Elves, but he put that aside for the moment. “What do you need, kit? What can I do?”

Grip loosening, she let out a low breath, and shook her head slowly. “Nothing. There’s not… I have to deal with this myself.”

Dwalin bit back a growl. “Kit, if there’s anything that can be done—”

“There isn’t!” After a pause, she continued more calmly. “If we were in the Shire, even in Erebor or someplace, I’d ask if we could camp out in the middle of nowhere until this is past, or at least if you could keep people I don’t like away, but we aren’t. There’s nothing you can do, nothing anyone can do, including me. Except deal with it. This isn’t something anyone can do for me.”

Looping his arms around her, he murmured into her hair, “It doesn’t sound like it’s me you’re trying to convince.”

She didn’t respond to that.

Dwalin thought that was a response in and of itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my biggest pet peeves is characters deciding they're in love after they've only known each other/been friends/been dating for a few months. There is a difference between love, infatuation, and affection, and most, if not all, of my characters know that, too. Right now, Dwalin cares deeply for Nori, but that's not being in love, that's recognizing that he could fall in love with her. Honestly, that's about where Belda and Kíli are right now, too, except they've got way more hormones involved. They're very infatuated with each other, they're good friends, but that's still only the possibility of actual love. I hate it when people act like fuzzy feelings are all love is. I could go on about this for like ten paragraphs, but I'm just going to stop now.  
> Notes: 'Dýrið' means 'animal', 'matur-dýra' means 'food-animal', and 'eitrað' means 'toxic', if Google Translate isn't lying to me.  
> Another fairly straightforward chapter. Tomorrow's where it gets *really* interesting. (^u^)  
> À demain!


	33. Ori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suffer through my attempts at mythology. (Important stuff happens, too.)

Ori wasn’t sure whether he was glad for the darkness or not. He didn’t have to see Nori lying there, but he also couldn’t see her if he wanted to. He and Dori had both decided on their own, the first night after she fell, that they would sleep on either side of her. Dori, he knew, slept with one hand on her arm so he could tell if she moved or if she stopped moving entirely.

Ori couldn’t bring himself to do the same. He didn’t know what he would do if he woke up and she was cold and stiff. When the others’ snoring drowned out the sound of her breathing, then he touched her hand, but he slept facing away from her. He couldn’t see her anyway, so what did it matter?

His anger had ebbed after the first few hours, but not disappeared. Part of him knew that he was worrying Fíli, even hurting her with how he avoided her, but he knew that he would hurt her more if he didn’t.

Because he was still angry. Not at Fíli, not at Thorin, not at Belda or Dwalin—even if he had been inclined to be, it was obvious that they were nearly as distraught as he and Dori were—not really at any one person.

He was angry at the world, if anything. At Mahal, at Eru, at every pompous, selfish, skinflint Dwarf who’d ever turned their family away, refused them work. At every Man who’d taken advantage of them, at every Elf who’d turned their backs on them while blaming them for being turncoats.

At Thrór for banishing them in the first. At Balin, Thrain, all of Thrór’s advisors and councilmen who should have seen him declining and stepped in. At Thorin and Dís for never recognizing them as family. At Dwalin for being the Captain of the Guard, for always chasing Nori, for giving Ori nightmares. At Dori for being so bull-headed that he couldn’t see how much they relied on Nori’s ‘earnings’. At Nori for being a thief.

It wasn’t fair.

They’d lost so much, suffered so much, Nori had sacrificed so much, and for what? For this? For a fool’s death and a criminal’s legacy? It wasn’t fair.

This wasn’t fair.

And he was going to burst if he sat still and stewed about it for another night.

Or worse, join Bombur in his grumbling against the world.

Belda and Dwalin had been staying on the far side of camp from Ori—though he suspected, mostly Nori—for the last three nights. But with Belda’s hearing in mind, Ori didn’t raise his voice much.

“Mabahharûna, iglib du mâ farinlugbu Zantulbasânul.”

After a moment, she responded, voice a bit hoarse, “Birashagammi, ak nê mafahnmiu farinlugbu Zantulbasânul. Amhili ‘ala bal?”

A bubble of laughter worked its way halfway up Ori’s throat and popped long before it reached his lips. “You’re doing very well, although you’re still rolling your ‘r’s.”

He could almost see her shrugging. “I like the way it sounds.”

That almost did make him laugh, since he couldn’t truly argue with her; it didn’t make her difficult to understand, it was just distinctly non-Dwarven, and somewhat exotic.

At least, Kíli seemed to think it was exotic, with how starry-eyed he tended to get whenever he heard her speaking Khuzdûl.

Still, for now, at least, he could go easy on her. They hadn’t had any lessons for days; he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d slipped a bit. It had been weeks since he’d had a Sindarin lesson, and he could barely remember the word for ‘tree’. “All right, if you don’t know any Hobbit stories,” which he greatly doubted, but he wasn’t going to push, “you must know something else we’ve never heard.”

As he finished, he couldn’t help but glance in Thorin’s general direction; he was a bit surprised Thorin hadn’t already told them to stop talking. It wasn’t the King who spoke next, though. “Ori’s right. You spent hours with El— with Beorn, you must have learnt something.”

Ori smiled hollowly at Fíli’s voice, but lost even that faint mirth at her mention of the Elf-lord. Their time in Rivendell seemed like a century-old memory, the luxury of only being irritated at the lack of meat a distant daydream. He’d give his share of the gold to have his sister awake and filching silverware, to be ‘trapped’ in a city filled with Elves, but with food and safety aplenty.

Whether Fíli’s contribution made Thorin more or less likely to speak, Dwalin didn’t give him the chance. “I know for a fact you did, kit. You mentioned that a few of them weren’t too kind to Elves, didn’t you?”

Her response to him was too low to hear, his rebuttal even more so, but after a few moments, she sighed quietly and said with a distinct edge, “There are bits of this story none of you will think much of. Bear in mind: this is not a Dwarven story; the world used to be a very different place; and, most of all, I’m in no mood to bend over backwards for your qualms.”

A bit of an ominous start, in Ori’s mind, but at least it promised an interesting tale, and possibly a true one, with her mention of the past.

No one else spoke up, either, and with another sigh that sounded almost resigned, to Ori’s ears, she began.

 

“Long before Dwarves and Hobbits were woken, before even Men walked Arda, the Elves opened their eyes and saw the stars. They numbered only six in the beginning, but soon swelled to sixty, and dwelt by the rivers, and learnt to sing. But even the Firstborn must eat, and their hunger soon proved inescapable. Their songs turned melancholy, then despairing, a plea to no one, they thought.

“But though the dark days of Arda, when Melkor spread his evil with neither caution nor moderation, were coming to a close, that is not to say the land was empty. The beasts of the field and the air heard the Elves’ song, and fled the unknown threat. And their guardian came to investigate.

“The Elves’ song died on their lips as a great form rose out of the shadows, growing until it blocked out the Eastern stars, two huge eyes shining down at them from an impossible height. Though they would not have the words to describe it until later, it had the head and body of a wolf, the feet and hind legs of a great cat, the wings of a raven, and the tail of a possum, and stood taller than one hundred Elves at the shoulder. Despite its size, it walked through the trees like an Elf through tall grass, and its steps made little noise. As it bent its great head down toward them, they saw that its fur was accented with feathers, and all its fur and feathers alike were the mottled greens and browns of a forest.

“Its cold green eyes swept over them, and they waited in fear; such a creature could easily catch them if they ran, and they could see its fearsome jaws and fangs now. ‘You are Eru’s children, then,’ the beast said, in a voice powerful and subdued as the sound of the tide. ‘Long have you been awaited. Were my charges granted fëa, they would fear you all the more.’

“The Elves were shocked. They, like so many, had no expectation of intelligence in one so unlike them. ‘We mean no harm,’ they protested. ‘Your charges need not fear us.’

“‘My charges are the beasts of the air, of the field, of the earth, of the forest. The rats fear the foxes, the foxes fear the elk, the elk fear the wolves, the wolves fear the falcons, and the falcons fear them all. Eru made you in the form of hunters for a reason. My charges have every reason to fear you.’

“The Elves protested, but the beast would not believe them. ‘We will never hunt your charges,’ the promised.

“‘Then what will you eat,’ the beast asked. ‘Like all living things, you must eat. You already hunger. In time, you must hunt or starve.’

“The Elves despaired at that, for they knew he was right. But the First of them and his wife gathered their courage, and asked, ‘Teach us to hunt the beasts of the water and to gather the fruits of the land. We will live on them, and never give your charges cause to fear us.’

“The beast considered it, and agreed. Turning to the forest, he gave a low, haunting howl. ‘Those of my charges with the skills you need will come. Heed their example.’

“With that, he left, leaving footprints as long and wide as five Elves, but only as deep as a hand-span. As he’d promised, all manner of creatures crept out of the forest, from kingfishers to bears, from field mice to elk. The Elves watched, and learned, and soon returned to their songs.

“But soon, the rivers were emptied of fish, and the fields of fruit, and the Elves continued on. Their numbers swelled again, from sixty to one hundred forty-four. Soon after this, Melkor learned of the Elves, and his evil found new form. He sent his followers among the Elves, to spread doubt and discord, and some of the Elves never returned if they ventured too far from the others. Those who did return spoke of a great rider, of a similar form to the Elves, but cloaked in night.

“The Elves slowly grew more afraid, and as they insulated themselves, they found less and less food, and those who had only heard of the beast were less afraid of him. ‘We’ve no choice,’ they began to say. ‘We were made to be hunters,’ they began to say. ‘Imin and Iminyë shouldn’t have spoken for us,’ they began to say.

“‘No one else will help us,’ Melkor’s agents whispered in their ears, ‘not the Valar, not Eru. We have everything we need.”

“Gradually, the Elves allowed themselves to be persuaded, save Imin and Iminyë. The animals had long since lost their fear of the Elves, though they still would not be made pets. But they trusted the Elves, and when the Elves beckoned them closer, they went willingly enough.

“And none of them had time to run before the Elves killed them.

“Imin and Iminyë were horrified, but when their fellows offered them food, their principles proved weaker than their hunger. For a night, they slept in peace and comfort, but when they woke, their hunger returned.

“‘Why not,’ Melkor’s agents whispered. ‘You’ve done it once.’

“More quickly than before, the Elves succumbed, and by the third day, none hesitated to set out on a hunt. By the sixth, they were becoming practiced at chasing down their fleeing prey.

“On the twelfth, two great forms blocked their path.

“Had the beast not been one of the forms, they might have attacked the other, but fear and terror stilled them. There had been whispers for longer than any could recollect, by whom none could recollect, that spoke of the dark horseman, the great rider that had been claiming the unlucky few. As the smaller form approached, they thought of the whispers, and fear gripped them all the more tightly.

“But the noblest of them, those who, even in the fervor of hunting, had sought to act mercifully toward their prey, saw a light in his eyes, the light of Faerie, as the Blessed Realm was called in the ancient days. They asked him why he had been taking their fellows, and why he had consigned them to starvation.

“Tauron, for he was the smaller form, was shocked at their fear, and at their accusations. He had known nothing of the Elves’ waking, and would have remained ignorant of them for decades had he not received reports of new hunters. ‘You were consigned to nothing,’ he said. ‘You had no need to hunt as you did.’

“‘We had no other choice,’ they protested, and were frozen in terror at the thunderous growl that left the beast.

“‘You had the choice to keep your promise,’ he said. ‘You had the choice to live off the land as do all the other creatures of the land.’

“The Elves began to protest further, but Tauron stopped them with nothing more than a word. The beast heeded him, as well, and left with a final snarl. For a year and a day, Tauron stayed with the Elves, and in that time, he taught them of Eru and of the Valar, of the Rebel Melkor, and he taught them to hunt as he did, and as the beast did: to take only what was necessary, to kill with mercy, and to respect the natural orders that Eru set into place.

“After a year and a day, Tauron left for the Blessed Realm to inform the other Valar of the Elves’ awakening. During all the time he had stayed with them, the Elves had neither seen nor heard the beast. Apart from faint curiosity, they thought nothing of his absence, and instead focused on their own welfare.

“After only a few, peaceful months, Tauron returned, and at his call, the beast emerged from the trees, and the Elves stared. The great, fearsome beast they had seen twice past was bedraggled and bloody, though no less proud. One of the youngest and silliest Elves blurted, ‘What could harm you?’

“His fellows quaked and pulled him back, away from the beast they were certain would take offense at the query, but instead he laughed, the sound deep and rich despite the pained edge it held. ‘Very little, little Eru-son. But when my commander orders me to guard such helpless creatures from all the Rebel’s agents, even one such as I can only stand so long against such forces.’

“Gathering his courage, Imin asked, ‘One such as you?’

“Sobering, the beast drew up to his full height, the starlight lining his form with silver, his eyes blazing green in the darkness. ‘A Dragon of The Forester and The Fire-Fay, Guardian and Caretaker of the Forests of Arda and all that live within them.’ Slowly, the Dragon’s form drooped, and he laid down at the edge of the clearing. Seeing the great weariness that clung to him, the Elves found themselves pitying him despite their fear. ‘But I should only be the Guardian of this forest. Because of the Rebel, I am the last of my kind, and as my kin have fallen, so their duties have fallen to me.’

“‘And I find no fault in your execution of your duties,’ Tauron said quietly. Grimly, he turned to the Elves. ‘As the Rebel has hunted my vassals, doubly so does he hunt you.’

“At that, the Elves grew afraid again. ‘How can we survive such a foe,’ they cried.

“There was only one answer that Tauron could give. ‘Through the protection of your elders.’ He turned to the Dragon. ‘Will you stand with us when the time comes?’

“‘I am no warrior, made to fight and kill,’ the Dragon said, but he still bowed his head to Tauron, ‘but I will follow my lord where he wishes, for the sake of my Lord.’

“And so, when the Elves felt the earth creak and groan underneath them, when bright lights like fires appeared in the North, they knew that the Dragon had followed Tauron to the battle. What became of him there, they never knew, as he never returned, and none like him were seen again until the memory of them had become as corrupt as the fire-drakes that called themselves ‘Dragon’.

 

The Company was silent for several moments. Ori’s mind was whirling, torn between the realization that if the story were true, then there had been good dragons, Ages before, and the similarities between the stories and Belda herself.

_‘Cold green eyes; a hunter, but a merciful one; protector of animals, and terrifying when angered; calls superiors “commander”; venerates Tauron and Vána, at least if I understand her cussing correctly. But it can’t be true. It’s impossible. But the way she stands sometimes, like she has extra weight on her back, like she has a tail, the way her fingers look more like claws sometimes. How inhuman she seems sometimes.’_

Glóin’s voice broke him out of his increasingly panicked thoughts. “Lass, you can’t mean to say that dragons used to be—”

“I told you, I’m in no mood to bend over backwards for you. That’s the story as Beorn shared it with me, take from it what you w—” A yawn interrupted her words; Ori felt guilty for asking her to tell the tale in the first for a moment, remembering that she’d been growing tired more easily, but a stab of confused, hurt anger smothered the guilt a moment later, since if he was right, she’d been lying to them for months.

Finally, Thorin spoke. “Enough talk. We can’t afford idle chatter.”

Ori frowned; Thorin sounded odd, almost as odd as Ori felt. But the Company quieted down without any fuss, and most soon slept, by the sound of their snoring.

Except for Ori. For the first time in days, if not years, he clung to his sister’s hand and silently pleaded with her to tell him what to do.

He didn’t know what to do.

If he was right, which he couldn’t be, because it was physically impossible, then he would have to do something. He had to, it was his duty as a Dwarf of Durin’s Line, leaving aside that he was (theoretically) the next king of Erebor. He had to tell Fíli and Thorin, even if he didn’t tell anyone else.

But Belda was the reason Nori was alive, and not swept away by the river. She was the reason all of them were alive, really, and more than once over: she’d saved them from the Trolls, basically single-handed; she’d secured them lodging and fair treatment at Rivendell; she’d warned them of the Goblins before the fall; she’d warned them of the Orcs after their escape from the Goblins, despite the fact that she was seriously wounded enough that no one would have blamed her if she’d just passed out as soon as she found the Company; she’d again secured them lodging and fair treatment from Beorn, when they all probably wouldn’t have lasted a day without his protection; and she’d saved Nori from the river.

He wouldn’t try and justify her lies, he didn’t even want to try to understand her, but he owed her a life-debt. Several, actually. He couldn’t knowingly put her in danger. Considering that when Thorin found out, he was likely to throw her out of the Company, regardless of where they were, telling Thorin would be putting her in danger. Telling Fíli would only be cruel, if she had to lie to her uncle and king. For the same reason, he couldn’t tell anyone else.

But only if he was right. It was still possible, even likely, that he was jumping at shadows.

A few months, or even weeks earlier, he might have tossed and turned the entire night with the chaos of his thoughts, but exhaustion worsened by hunger had him fall into a fitful sleep before the first watch ended.

A clatter beside his head startled him awake before light even began to permeate the forest-gloom. He was still holding Nori’s hand, he realized, and was too focused on listening to her breath to pay attention to Óin’s gruff apology.

He wasn’t sure if Nori sounded stronger or not yet. If Belda was right, Nori would wake in a few days, but considering it was a magical sleep, there was no way to know if there would be any signs beforehand. She might wake as suddenly as she fell.

Or she might not.

The low rumble of Dwalin’s voice caught his attention, and he focused on the sound rather than his sister. “…ck to sleep, kit. A few minutes more won’t slow us.”

Belda gave an agreeing mumble and Ori heard Dwalin move away from her.

He shouldn’t. It was foolish, and foolhardy, and impulsive.

But his other option was to sit and hold Nori’s hand until Thorin called them to move, as he had for three mornings.

Gently, he let go of Nori’s hand and stood. Picking his way around the Company was tricky, but he managed it somehow, and shook Belda’s shoulder. “Wake up.” As she stirred, he added, “Be quiet and follow me.”

As he walked away from the Company, more often than not, he was stumbling over roots; he couldn’t hear Belda behind him, though he didn’t doubt she was.

 _‘“Through the trees like an Elf through tall grass”’,_ he remembered. The doubt that had plaguing him since he woke evaporated, and he turned to face her as the sound of the Company faded to the point that he could only just hear them.

But when he turned, he nearly fell over to see two glowing green eyes approaching him. But they were unmistakably Belda’s, and his heart fell as she slowed to a stop. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

Blinking at him, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What are y—”

Lowering his voice to a low hiss, he moved closer to her. “The story! Did you make it up?!”

“No!” She sounded affronted, but she didn’t move away. “I said last night, I learned it at Beorn’s. And yes, as far as I know, it is true.”

“That’s not what I was talking about.” The gloom was just beginning to lift, just enough for him to see some of her expression as he continued, “I meant that you’re a dragon.”

There was just enough light for him to see the naked fear on her face.

Reeling, he drew back a few steps. “No, it is true. I thought— I hoped that you’d just dismiss it, tell me I’m crazy, because this is crazy, but it’s true, isn’t it?” Biting back a frustrated growl, he fought the urge to just storm away from her. “Tell me. Say it!”

He found himself inches away from her face as he hissed the last, though he didn’t recall moving, and he saw the moment she broke. Tears filled her eyes, despair replaced the fear, she trembled, but still, she didn’t move away.

“I’m a dragon.”

She whispered it as though it were the end of the world. Maybe it was.

Ori didn’t know what to think.

She began to reach toward him as he backed away, her mouth already beginning to form his name, but he cut her off harshly. “Don’t. Just— Don’t.”

Her hand fell back to her side, and if he wasn’t just seeing things, she was crying. She was a dragon, and she was crying. She was a dragon, and she looked as though she were heartbroken. Did dragons even have hearts? Was this all an act?

Remembering her injuries after they got out of the mountain, he conceded to himself that not all of it had been an act. For whatever reason, whether she actually cared for them or just needed them alive so she could get her share of the treasure or something, she was intent on protecting them.

And that, he could use.

Looking at her again, part of him was struck by the resignation in her face, but for the most part, he ignored it. “I owe you a debt. The entire Company owes you, but I don’t just owe you for saving my life, I owe you for saving Nori. So I won’t tell anyone, especially Thorin.” Her eyes widened, lips beginning to pull into a smile, but she froze at his next words. “On one condition.” Deliberately, he held her eyes as he spoke, and he saw the hope drain out of them. “You will not speak to me or my family again. If Dori or Nori, once she wakes up, start speaking to you, you’ll respond politely, you’ll smile and nod, and you’ll walk away. If there’s an emergency, you’ll protect us as always, and afterwards, you’ll stay far away from me and mine. Is that understood?”

She nodded mutely, head bent down. When it was clear that she didn’t intend to say anything further, he moved around her and back toward the sound of the Company. Just as he was nearly our of earshot of her, he heard her whisper, quietly enough that he doubted she’d meant him to hear, “Better at loopholes already.”

Thrown by the misery in her tone, he set his jaw and stalked away from her. He’d sit with Fíli while she ate. He had no appetite.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda regretted the words as soon as they slipped out, and deliberately held herself perfectly still as he resumed his departure. It was only when she heard his voice join the other in the Company that she let herself fall to her knees, both hands forcibly smothering her sobs.

She’d thought they were friends; had she been wrong? She’d thought he, out of anyone in the Company, might be able to recognize that it didn’t change who she was. She’d thought the story was safe enough to tell, that no one would connect anything in it to her. She’d thought that the story might show the Company that dragons didn’t necessarily have to be evil. How much had she been wrong about?

Hunched over herself to try, at least, to lessen the heartache, she pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, gritting her teeth against the urge to howl. Her chest felt hollow, like a hole dug into the sand around The Water. Except that the sides of the hole would eventually fall in and fill it; the emptiness she felt didn’t seem as though it could be filled, just an endless void, endlessly sucking her in, endlessly clawing at her ribs.

Even the forest couldn’t touch her, though a few stray thoughts about revenging herself on Ori made it clear that it was trying.

She was too miserable for them to get so much as a toehold, though, and they faded quickly.

But eventually, she heard the Company beginning to move out. Shoving down her instincts and emotions both, she lurched upright and nearly overbalanced, pinwheeling her arms for a moment to compensate for the lack of weight on her back. Leaning against a tree, she closed her eyes and ran through her exercises, and again when the first series did almost nothing.

Feeling marginally more Hobbitish, she followed the sound of Dwarves. Dwalin met her at the edge of camp, brow furrowed, but she only shook her head at him; she didn’t have the energy to tell him everything yet. She did accept her ration from him, though, and picked up her pack while she was chewing; feeling the weight of it, or lack thereof, she sent him a frustrated glare, but he only gave her a look. They’d had that argument more than once, her insisting that it was only fair for them to distribute the food equally between them, him holding that he could carry more weight, more easily than she could, so it was only logical to empty her pack first. After four and a half weeks, they nearly had.

Out of habit, she glanced at Nori before setting out, but only just had time to see there’d been no change before she realized Ori, standing beside his sister, was glaring at her. Fíli, on his other side, looked confused, but Belda looked away before she could see anything further.

Hitching her pack a bit higher, she started walking, feeling the eyes of half the Company on her. Dwalin fell in step behind her, the assorted Company behind him, and they walked.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Fíli looked between Belda and Ori, concerned. Belda ducked her head after a short moment, but Ori kept glaring at the back of her head for several seconds.

“Did... did something happen?”

He glanced at her, eyes wide, as though he’d forgotten she was there; his expression closed off an instant later, and he shook his head. “Drop it.”

“Ori—”

He cut her off fiercely, “I said—”

Shutting his mouth with a clack, he visibly composed himself as Fíli watched, eyes wide. She wasn’t afraid of him by any means, but she hadn’t expected that level of intensity. Whatever Belda had done to infuriate him to this degree—and in a single night, at that—must have been deathly serious.

Shaking his head again, he smiled apologetically at her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped; I’m not angry with you, I just—” Sighing, he rubbed a hand over his eyes. “It’s personal. I can’t tell you yet, but maybe once we’re out of this bloody death trap of a forest.”

She shook her head, huffing lightly. “None of us are at our best, and you still have less of a temper than Uncle or Dwalin. I’m not hurt.”

“Still, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for avoiding you for the last few days,” he winced, “it’s just, with Nori...”

Glancing at Thorin—up at the head of the line—and Dori—closer to them, but talking with Balin—to make sure they weren’t looking, she kissed him on the cheek. “I understand. I’d be the same if it were Kíli.”

His half-smile softened into the adoring look she loved. “Walk with me today? I’ve missed talking with you.”

“Of course.” Glancing at their respective guardians again, she risked a quick kiss on the lips; when no one starting shouting, she and Ori shared a conspiratorial grin.

But as they joined the line, she was aware that she was far from the only person to have picked up on the abrupt frost between her One and their friend. Before he’d fallen in line behind her, Kíli had looked worried for Belda and vaguely suspicious of Ori; Dwalin was much the same, but overtly suspicious. Most of the Company seemed largely perplexed.

For Fíli’s part, she felt torn. Belda was her friend, and she couldn’t imagine Belda doing anything to Ori intentionally. But then, Belda could be a bit... intimidating. Fíli didn’t like to admit it, even to herself, but there were times that Belda seemed so, so... _other_ , that Fíli couldn’t help but be afraid of her for a second or two. Maybe it was a Hobbit thing. So Fíli could imagine Belda _un_ intentionally doing something to offend or frighten Ori.

And Ori was her One. Aside from the fact that not taking his side was unthinkable, as a matter of honor, she couldn’t imagine him doing the slightest thing to Belda without sufficient provocation. So whether it had been intentional or not, Ori was still in the right.

She’d talk to Belda, of course, but she would stand with Ori.

No matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUUUUHHNNN!!  
> Notes: 1) What Ori said to Belda translates as 'She Who Is Learning, recite to us a story of Hobbits'. (Closest I could get to 'tell us a Hobbit story'.) 2) Belda's response is 'Sorry, but I don't know any. Am I doing this right?' (Roughly.) Hopefully that was clear without the translations. 3) Fun fact, the Dwarrow Scholar's IPA pronunciations say that 'r's should be rolled and 'kh' is a hard 'k' sound, but the pronunciations in the movies (or at least when Thorin is yelling at Thranduil; I've been rewatching the Elf stuff to try and get a handle on Thranduil's personality) is more in line with Semetic (or possibly just Hebrew; I don't know anything about any other Semetic languages) pronunciation, with more French-type 'r's in the back of your throat and 'kh' as a hard 'h' sound kind of like 'x' in Russian. Long story short, the pronunciations in the Dwarrow Scholar's dictionary are in line with Dwarves having Scottish accents, but... I like the idea of them sounding very, *very* non-Romance too much to leave it like that. Besides, it differentiates them more from Elves. And then Belda has more of an accent (she could learn to pick up a Khuzdûl accent, but she just doesn't want to).   
> (Also, all Khuzdûl vowels are short unless they have an accent above them. So, for example, according to my rules, 'Khuzdûl' should be pronounced 'Hhuhz-dool', and 'Khazad-dûm' should be 'Hhahz-ahd-doom'. I'm honestly not sure where the emphasis should be. In English it tends to be on the first syllable and then alternating from there [majorly generalizing, I know], so that would be 'HhUHZ-dool' and 'HhAHZ-ahd-DOOM', but I've noticed from listening to people speaking Hebrew that it tends to be even syllables there, so that would be 'Hhuhz-DOOL' and 'Hhuhz-AHD-doom'. I honestly don't know. It should probably be the latter, but that's just hard for me to imagine. Sometimes it sucks to be monolingual.)  
> 4) I almost put an asterisk on 'possum', but I think it's really obnoxious when authors do that, so I didn't, but it is vitally important that you understand that we are NOT talking about American possums. This is an Australian possum we're talking about. Look 'em up, they're much cuter. And, ya know, not made of nightmares and death. But if you don't want to Google, just know that Australian ones have prehensile tails. (^u^)  
> À demain!


	34. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return of sanity. (And sarcasm.)

Faint, haunting laughter came from the left, and Belda suppressed a growl. For two days after Ori’s ultimatum, they’d been in a lighter stretch of forest, filled with beeches and noticeably lacking in undergrowth to trip them up, and permeated with a greenish light, and there was even a slight breeze.

But the light showed that the trees were endless, the wind sounded unceasingly melancholy, and the path was nearly hidden by the dead leaves of countless autumns, while freshly dead leaves occasionally drifted down to the deep red carpets of the forest. The laughter proved that the Elves were near, but even if Thorin and the rest hadn’t been immovable on the subject, she wouldn’t have been inclined to seek them out; the laughter—and sometimes singing—was eerie and strange, and made her wish she had her claws already.

Now, four days past her conversation with Ori, the trees were mostly oaks, and more dense again. But she could still hear the laughter, even if no one else in the Company could.

They were all heartily sick of the forest, but Belda still found herself irritated with Thorin when he swore darkly just past midday. “Is there no end to this bloody forest?”

Slowing to a stop, Belda turned to look at her commander, sharing a tired glance with Dwalin. Thorin was glowering at the trees, then looked up.

A considering look crept over his face for a moment; Belda kept her voice low enough that no one past Dwalin and Thorin ought to hear. “We can’t climb anything here.”

Thorin’s eyes widened, then narrowed into a glare. “Do you question me?”

To something that melodramatic, she could only roll her eyes. “We’ve been going downhill since this morning. Climbing here, we’d be in the middle of a valley and we wouldn’t be able to see anything.”

“Don’t speak to me like I’m a child!”

“Don’t act like one!”

Clearing his throat harshly, Dwalin stepped bodily between the two of them. Belda shifted her weight self-consciously, irritation scrabbling under her skin at how quickly she’d given in to temptation. The thought of going ahead on her own flitted over her mind, and she snarled silently at it; the only good thing about whatever magic was in the forest was that it was easy to tell it wasn’t her half the time.

Of course, the other half, it took her minutes or hours to figure out why she was ready to snap at Bombur, or to jump Kíli, or to keen when she remembered Ori’s expression as he rejected her from his pack.

Part of her was aware that Dori, if anyone, was the leader of their family pack, but family packs tended to be more egalitarian than formal packs in any case, so Ori’s rejection was as weighty as either of his siblings’ would be.

But she forgave him. Of course she forgave him; he was protecting his family. She couldn’t hold that against him any more than she could hold it against her ‘family’ in Hobbiton.

But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

Thorin growled under his breath; she glanced up, concerned, but felt her hackles fall as she saw that Dwalin had won the staring contest. Glowering, Thorin barked, “We walk on!”

Inclining her head, Belda turned back to the path and began picking her way again, readjusting quickly when her toes felt dirt under the leaves rather than stone.

He was her commander, after all.

Even if he was a complete child at times.

By the end of the night, they still hadn’t crested out of the valley. They made camp on the path as usual, but there were barely more than crumbs to go around. Despite how dearly she knew she ought to insist on giving half of her share to Dwalin, she couldn’t stop herself from taking his when he offered it. She felt wretched after it was gone, and it barely made a dent in her hunger.

Curling into herself, she hid her face in his side; she couldn’t bear to look at him when she knew he was in even worse shape. A sigh rustled her hair, but he didn’t say a word. His head rested on hers and his arm looped warmly around her, and she only just kept from crying.

Grumbling caught her ear. “…tter if we’d never come to this Mahal-forsaken place.”

“If we’d never come on this Mahal-forsaken Quest.”

“…hal-forsaken king.”

Belda was on her feet and staring down Bombur and Dori before she even realized that the snarl filling the trees was from her. They stared back, wide-eyed and pale; Dori, she dismissed as an accomplice at best—not to mention she couldn’t speak directly to him without breaking her word—but Bombur’s grouching had been growing steadily worse for days. He’d never been happy about the rationing, but since they’d needed to carry Nori, he’d been getting even worse.

The fact that he’d progressed to speaking treason against his king was Belda's fault. She was Thorin’s rándýr-verndari. She should have put a stop to it before it got this far.

Deliberately, she lowered her voice to a near-murmur. “Are you a Valar, Bombur?”

Dori began edging away; she ignored him. Bombur managed a single, trembling, shake of his head.

“Are you Eru?”

Another shake.

“Are you a priest?”

A slower shake; she thought he might have been beginning to understand.

Swiftly, she leaned down to look him dead in the eye; he lost his balance and fell backward, but she only leaned closer. “Then who are you to speak for Mahal?”

He didn’t respond, scent thick with fear.

Smoothly, she stood from the hands-and-feet crouch she hadn’t noticed falling into, holding his eyes all the while. By the fear in his scent, he’d received the message, even if he hadn’t learned the lesson; she’d keep an ear out for any further treason, but she didn’t think there was anything else she could say that would do anything but dilute what she’d already said. Cooly, she turned her back on him and walked back to Dwalin’s side.

As she did, she couldn’t help but glance at Dori where he’d retreated to by his siblings: he looked relieved, for the most part; Nori looked no different; Ori—the change put his earlier discomfort into sharp relief—was far more relaxed than he had been. She didn’t dare meet his eyes, but the knot in her gut did loosen a bit to see that he didn’t hate her more now.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

An elbow in his side pulled his attention to the side. Fíli rolled her eyes at him. “I swear, you’re getting soppier.”

A clever retort was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t grasp it. So he just shrugged. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t.”

Just past her was Ori, and Kíli cocked his head at him. “You look…” The word wasn’t there. “Not tense.”

Ori snorted, then reached past Fíli to push Kíli upright as the world tilted more. “I’ve been wanting to shove Bombur’s face in for days. It’s a relief to see someone who isn’t me do it, and without actually touching him.”

“Even if it is Belda?”

There was something in Fíli’s tone that Kíli couldn’t process, and in Ori’s answering grunt, but all Kíli could focus on was Belda as she met his eyes from her seat by Dwalin. “Yeah. Belda’s wonderful.”

Faintly, he heard an amused snort. “Of course the only three-syllable word he can muster is about Belda.” Fíli’s voice trailed off. Even more quietly, he heard, “…What is it?”

He couldn’t bring himself to care.

* * *

 

Nori

 

Nori woke suddenly, the transition from dreaming to waking jarringly quick, but kept her eyes closed and her breathing even. She’d gone to sleep in a Shire-inn with too-small beds, but where had she woken up?

It wasn’t the first time she’d been moved in her sleep, though usually there was some sort of sedative she could blame for sleeping too deeply. But she hadn’t tasted anything strange in the food or drink of the inn—apart from being remarkably delicious—and she’d have noticed if there’d been a strange smell in the room.

Now she smelled trees—oaks—and autumn rain, but it was only April. And why was she so hungry?

Taking stock of herself, she noted that multiple someones were holding her hands. It wasn’t until a quiet conversation—quiet enough to be barely audible over the sound of the rain—began over her that she realized who.

“For a moment, I thought… But she’s still asleep.” Ori; had he been kidnapped, too?

“Just— Just be patient.” And Dori; taking Ori was questionable enough, but who would want Dori? A low burning settled into her gut; whoever touched her brothers was going to regret it. But what Ori had said… How long had she been sleeping? “Should be any day now, if Belda’s right.”

Who was ‘Belda’? Their captor?

“She is.”

“You’re so sure?”

“Yes.”

Dori huffed the way he did when he was worried and didn’t want to show it. “If you have so much faith in her, make up already! I don’t know what she did, but she’s your friend.”

“Not anymore.”

“Are you actually trying to say that you don’t miss talking with her?” Nori nearly spoke up in support of Dori before she caught herself; Dori was almost completely oblivious to how she and Ori thought, so if he’d noticed that Ori and this ‘Belda’ were friends, they must have been dear friends indeed. But Ori didn’t respond. “It’s going to be unavoidable once Nori wakes up. You must know that. You know how close they are.”

At that, Nori couldn’t keep from sitting bolt upright. “We what?!”

Ori nearly fell over with shock; Dori actually did. Quickly, Nori scanned her surroundings: as she’d thought, they were in an autumn forest; the full Company was there, plus a petite girl beside Dwalin who barely looked old enough to be away from her parents; all of them, Dori and Ori included—and especially the girl—looked as though they’d been subsiding on quarter-rations for weeks, if not months.

Her stomach twisted. The previous night, they’d all been healthy and happy in Hobbiton; not fat, by any means, other than Bombur, but this…

This wasn’t the sort of change that could take place in a single night.

“Nori?”

With an effort, she swallowed down her panic, though she doubted how successful she was, since this didn’t make any sense, it wasn’t possible, it was mad, it— Shaking herself, she gripped Ori’s shoulder, holding his eyes. “Ori, I need you to answer my questions without asking any of your own for a minute. Where are we?”

He looked a bit confused, but complied, “Still in Mirkwood, just a different section.”

“How long have I been sleeping?”

“A week, just.”

“How long is it since we left the Shire?”

The furrow between his brows grew deeper. “Since just before May, so a bit over three months, I think.”

His words struck her like a hammer in the chest. “Three…” That wasn’t possible, how was it possible? And by the way he was speaking, he expected her to remember all of it but a week; she’d been awake for it, and now…

“Nori, what’s wrong?”

If she hadn’t already been sitting, her legs would have given out as she answered; as it was, her head was reeling and Ori’s voice was oddly distant. “How… How can I not remember three full months?”

As she cradled her head in her hands, she couldn’t see Ori’s expression, but his voice was hoarse. “You mean— You don’t remember anything since the Shire?”

She didn’t bother to answer that; it was obvious.

His voice sharpened a moment later. “You didn’t say anything about memory loss!”

She glanced up, ready to snipe at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. Frowning, she followed his gaze to the girl beside Dwalin. The girl in question was staring back at her, pale with shock, though her complexion was far darker than anyone else in the Company. But her eyes… Her eyes were an impossible, vivid green, and with a cat’s pupils.

Without looking away from Nori, she answered Ori weakly, “I didn’t… He didn’t say anything about…” She trailed off, some emotion in her face that Nori couldn’t pin down.

“You should have asked!”

“Ori!” Nori glanced, wide-eyed, at Dori; it was hard to say which of them was more surprised to be in agreement about it.

Nori gestured for Dori to continue; he did so with a glare for Ori. “Even Beorn didn’t know what the enchantment entailed, so how could she have known to ask? And if it weren’t for Belda—”

“I know!”

There was silence for a few moments following Ori’s outburst. Nori was too busy wondering who Beorn was and what enchantment they were talking about to break it.

Though she did guess that the girl was Belda. That would explain her reaction, if she and Nori had been ‘close’. Guilt and indignation twisted together to stab Nori in the gut; why should she feel so wretched for not remembering her? Besides which, if she’d turned Ori against her somehow, who was to say that she was even worth Nori’s affection?

But still, she felt guilty.

Movement in the corner of her eye drew her attention back to Dwalin and the girl. To her shock, Dwalin was embracing her, murmuring to her too quietly for Nori to hear. The girl had her head turned to the side, her face buried in Dwalin’s chest, and the angle revealed the ears of a Hobbit and an adoption braid with Dwalin’s bead. Nori had spent long hours in various arrests and interrogations memorizing Dwalin’s beads for boredom, and that was unmistakably one of them. His Line bead, if she wasn’t seeing things.

In a thousand years, she never would have expected that from him.

She felt as though there were something on the tip of her tongue, something so important, but she couldn’t place it.

The collective Company—mostly Ori, Fíli, Kíli, Balin, and Bifur—distracted her from Dwalin by telling her everything that had happened since the night they spent at the Green Dragon. Altogether, it was ludicrous enough that she didn’t want to believe them, but between Balin’s solemn confirmations of the others’ accounts and Kíli’s endearingly besotted testimonies of Belda’s achievements—which occasionally had to be stopped with a hand over his mouth if he didn’t realize they were trying to shut him up—eventually Nori found herself accepting it.

Though, she wasn’t sure how, if Belda had known from the start that Fíli was a woman, she hadn’t known Nori was.

Eventually, of course, they asked if listening to them had brought back anything. For a moment, she considered lying, but decided it was too much effort. “No. None of it even sounds familiar.”

The overall mood of the Company grew almost tangibly darker; Thorin barked, “You’re wasting light! Move out!”

Groaning, the Company complied; Nori followed suit, but couldn’t help protesting, “Before breakfast?”

Everyone in earshot but Kíli and Bofur froze. Dori and Ori wouldn’t meet her eyes. “…We ate the last of the food last night.” Kíli noticed the general mood and visibly focused. “And we ran out of water a few days ago.”

At his mention of water, Nori’s thirst made itself painfully known. She’d barely noticed it before, but now she wasn’t sure she could ignore it.

She grinned, deliberately tucking away everything but cheer. “Did I ever tell you about the time I was stranded in the Ettenmoors with nothing but a set of lockpicks?”

Granted, she’d filched a pack of supplies off some bandits within two days and been back in civilization within a sennight, but she could always exaggerate.

Ori, Fíli, and Kíli all perked up at her mention of a story; putting aside the insistent sensation that her legs had been replaced with Dori’s hemp test fabric, she focused on the three barely-more-than-children.

She couldn’t help noticing that Belda was listening as well.

By evening, the incline was beginning to even out, and Thorin and Belda began arguing whether or not there was enough light for her to climb a tree. Nori was surprised by the chit’s fire, but even more so by the fact that she was the one arguing to be allowed to climb before dark and he was the one insisting on her safety.

Dwalin was standing between and a bit behind them, looking long-suffering. She knew that look well.

She was already leaning on Ori, but she leaned a bit further to murmur to him, “Do they do this often?”

He nodded stiffly. “She seems to think it’s her job to keep his ego in check.”

Watching them, she approved heartily; it was about time.

As the argument reached a crescendo, Dwalin took a step forward to separate the two of them; Belda subsided without a fuss, but Thorin looked as though he were barely holding himself back from striking his friend.

Frowning, Nori glanced around the Company, but no one looked eager to jump in. Really, no one looked as though they had the energy to, even if they had the inclination.

Well, she did, and she was getting a bit annoyed with Ori’s as-yet-unexplained hostility toward Belda, especially when combined with the fact that Nori’d seen nothing about her to suggest she was untrustworthy.

Dangerous, perhaps—she moved like a cat and Kíli had waxed lyrical about her fighting—but the way she behaved with Thorin only spoke of a strong-willed young woman, not a sinister rebel. The way she behaved with Dwalin was more reminiscent of a young girl still holding onto her father’s coattails, but that didn’t necessarily mean that either was an act. Nori still remembered what it had been like to be fifty years old. She’d already been supplementing their parents’ income with bits of tosh and winning most of the scraps she got into with other dips and heels, but she would’ve given anything for five minutes of undivided attention from either her Amad or Adad.

Instead she got brushed aside in favor of Dori, the perfect swot he was, then Ori.

And then one night she came home, pockets bursting, to find their Amad growing cold, their Adad’s things gone, and Dori desperately trying to soothe a wailing Ori. She’d gone straight out again, pawned everything she’d stolen and half her own things for a third of what they were actually worth so that she could buy enough food for Ori to last the week.

The only reason Dori hadn’t thrown it in her face was that he’d tried everything else and the only explanation left was that Ori was hungry.

A few years later, once they were stable enough that she could be gone for a few weeks, she’d tracked down their father. It took two months, but she found him in a different settlement, under a different name, courting a woman who looked nothing like Nori’s mother.

She’d never told either of her brothers.

But there was something familiar about the half-too-old-for-her-years, half-too-young-for-her-age way Belda acted.

She’d never have a chance for a private conversation in the middle of the Company.

Shrugging off Ori’s arm—and hiding her wince as her legs took her full weight—she addressed Thorin with a grin. “If you’re that worried about her, I can see the kitten-burglar part-way up.”

A squeak came from behind Dwalin at the nickname, but it was Dwalin’s reaction that took her off guard. Immediate indignant rage, she expected.

Fear underlying it, she didn’t.

“No! You’ve only just woken up, you aren’t strong enough—”

“’S’all in the arms, anyway, innit?” She grinned wolfishly at him as he turned slightly purple. “‘Sides, sleeping for a week leaves you stiff like you wouldn’t believe. Nice climb’ll do me good.”

“Th— Y— It’s not a idle stroll!”

She looked at him flatly. “I only lost the last few months; I’m well aware this isn’t a walk in the park.”

Motion in the corner of her eye caught Nori’s attention, but she didn’t break eye contact with Dwalin; he’d paled, not significantly, but enough for her to notice, with as close as they were standing. “If you fell—”

“I’m aware of the concept of gravity, thank you.”

A throat cleared beside Nori, and she looked down at Belda at the same moment that Dwalin did. Despite seeing her move, Nori was still taken off guard; she’d been more silent than anything had a right to in a forest such as this. The bantith glanced between them for a moment, brows raised, before addressing Dwalin. “I think it’s a good idea.” He opened his mouth, brows lowering, but Belda continued quickly, “She obviously can’t climb all the way—or even halfway—up, but if I need to yell something down in a hurry, she can relay it.”

Looking frustrated, he closed his mouth; he had to know as well as Nori did that higher comprehension could be the difference between life and death. If they couldn’t hear Belda from the top of the tree, they could all be dead before she climbed down into earshot.

But the fear in his face was still there. Fear on Nori’s behalf. She’d be lying if she said that didn’t make the soft, gooey bits of her melt, but she had more than enough experience setting her emotions aside to be more focused on figuring out why. The others hadn’t said anything about them growing fonder of each other. Fíli had mentioned that they seemed to have come to an agreement about her teaching Belda a few skills, but that was it.

But she would have noticed this before. The Shire might have been three months ago for everyone else, but it was yesterday for Nori, and she knew that Dwalin hadn’t looked at her with anything but his usual annoyance then.

She was missing something.

She hated that.

Remembering Thorin's presence, she glanced at him; it had only been a few instants since Belda finished, but he was already looking as though he were considering the idea.

A breath of out-of-place wind yanked her attention back around; her head snapped around just in time for her to see Ori yank Belda around to face him.

“What do you think you’re doing,” he hissed; his face was nearly purple.

Without another thought, Nori hooked her fingers in his jacket and pulled him away from the tiny girl. He turned his glare on her, but she didn’t give him a chance to speak. “What do you think you’re doing?” She’d never seen him so furious before; it made him look all the more like their father, and she did not enjoy the sight. “Is that how Dori and I taught you to act?”

Betrayal flashing across his face, he pulled easily free of her grip. She let him go; she hadn’t inherited their mother’s strength.

But Dori had.

He grabbed Ori before he could turn back to Belda and hauled him further away; Belda, Nori noticed, was pale and frozen, and looked as though she’d cry.

“Nori’s right!”

“Nori—”

“No,” Dori gave Ori a slight shake, “I’ve not said anything before since I thought it was because you were worried, but this stops, Ori! And Nori,” he glanced quickly at her, stricken, but his expression firmed in an instant and he turned back to Ori, “Nori’s right about climbing. I’m not happy, but I won’t speak against it.”

Nori inhaled sharply, an ember of warmth growing in her chest.

He glanced at her again, and held her eyes for a few seconds. “I’ve spent too long fighting everything she says. And it ends, Ori.” He gave him another slight shake and let him go. “Whatever Belda did to you, it doesn’t justify treating her so roughly. Ignore her if you want, but lay a finger on her again and I’m ending your courtship with Fíli.”

Nori’s brows leapt up. She’d been told of Ori and Fíli’s near-simultaneous realizations, but they’d obviously made light of how precarious it was. Marriage to a Princess? Dori would never even bluff such a thing unless he was at the end of his temper. Especially since Dori didn’t bluff. Ever.

Reflexively, she glanced at Thorin to see if he’d step in or contradict Dori, but he only watched them, ever-present glower at half strength. Glancing at Dwalin from there was easy; he looked as shocked as she felt, and met her eyes as though he’d felt her looking at him. Her next thought was for Belda’s reaction, but she wasn’t beside Dwalin anymore. Frowning, Nori glanced at the rest of the Company—and saw them all in various states of shock, especially Fíli, or confusion, Kíli, Glóin, and Bofur—but Belda wasn’t with them, either.

Considering she didn’t remember anything about the girl, Nori was at a loss. What she would’ve done in her position was—

She glanced up at the tree Belda had been speaking of climbing and wasn’t entirely surprised to see the thinner branches trembling faintly, as though a small person had set them shaking a few moments before.

Ori, recovering from his shock, protested, “You can’t do that!”

Quietly, Nori began to edge around Thorin.

Dori narrowed his eyes at Ori. “Can’t I?”

As she reached the tree, Nori peeked between Thorin and Dwalin at Ori, and saw him fumbling for an answer. Taking the chance that everyone would be focused on him, she hopped up to grab the lowest branch and hauled herself up onto it with a grunt. Dwalin looked sharply around at the sound.

Their eyes met for a moment.

His tightened at the corners, but a rueful smile flickered over his features and he turned back around, shaking his head.

Taking that as tacit approval, she kept climbing without waiting for anyone else to notice. And if there was no one to see the smile that refused to be suppressed a moment longer, so be it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Dori has seen sense!  
> Notes: 1) The line 'dead leaves of countless autumns' is almost verbatim from the book. Actually, a lot of the descriptions in this section are paraphrased from the book. Tolkien, dudes. The man knew his craft and he wielded it well. 2) 'Dips and heels' are pickpockets and sneak thieves.  
> À Lundi!


	35. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belda and Nori have a long-overdue talk.

Belda’s head broke through the final layer of leaves suddenly enough that she nearly lost her grip, and the first taste of fresh air she had was a panicked inhale.

The second was a greedy gulp, as she felt the forest’s magic slough off her almost tangibly. Every breath seemed to drive it further out and bring her further back to herself. Tightening her grip on the branches, she closed her eyes and tipped her face toward the sun, soaking in the heat and breathing more deeply than she thought she ever had.

She hadn’t felt this desperate for fresh air when the Hob-Goblin was choking her.

But after a couple minutes, she had to fight a yawn. She’d been using a combination of her hatred of the forest and the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach to keep herself awake, but now both were draining back to what had been normal levels a month and a half earlier. She still hated the forest, and remembering Ori’s words still made her stomach clench and her heart ache, but it was more manageable.

And less useful.

She couldn’t stay for long. Not without falling asleep and probably falling out of the tree. As much as she wanted to spread her wings and never go under the canopy again, she had to do her duty and scout it out.

The first thing she saw, when she opened her eyes, was a cloud of black wings around her; as she watched, dozens more butterflies lifted off from treetops further away and joined the hundreds circling around her. Their coloring was a dark, dark, velvety black, but when the waning sunlight hit them at the right angle, she could see glints of gold and green and red. The sight brought a genuine, delighted laugh to her lips, and they danced at the sound.

After a minute, regretful, she whistled for them to land; she couldn’t see a thing past them. But she was still smiling. They’d broken up the sunlight enough to give her eyes time to adjust, but even so, facing the general direction of the sun felt like driving rusty nails through her retinas. That was all right. She needed to look east anyway.

And there, half shining sun-gold against the deepening blue of the north-eastern horizon, stood a lonely peak, with a river stretching out from it like a silken path.

She had to tear her eyes eyes away from Erebor, caught by the sudden, burning longing for a home there. The force of it took her breath away; she didn’t think she’d ever understood Thorin more.

The blue silk of the river wound down to a broad lake directly to the east, the nearest edge of which was hidden by the treetops, though she knew from Thorin’s map that it was miles off yet. Dark, low shapes on the closest side of the water had to be Esgaroth, and though it was impossible to judge precisely how far the trees extended from her, it couldn’t be more than a few days’ travel.

But even as the thought occurred to her, her heart fell. Their pace had been slowing for days—which was partly her fault, as she got light-headed if she walked too briskly—as the Company grew weaker. They’d been on half-rations for weeks, but Thorin had cut them further, to quarter-rations, after Nori fell. All of them—Belda included—were sleeping longer and deeper, taking rests throughout the day, and Bombur’s constant grousing was beginning to sway the others toward giving up.

Dwarven stubbornness was legendary, but would this be enough to motivate them?

A broken laugh left her lips; would this be enough to motivate her?

She’d thought they would be out of the forest before they ran out of food, but they still had days of walking yet, and without the slightest crumb.

She’d gone hungry before. She’d gone without food for three weeks once.

But she was already so _hungry_. Nearly all her dreams anymore were of hunting as a dragon, and in them, no matter how much she ate, none of it made a difference, and she woke up hungrier than when she’d fallen asleep.

She couldn’t do this.

Could she do this?

She’d pass out before they ever reached the edge.

She had to muscle through.

Would the others even be able to carry her?

She didn’t have a choice; the pack came first.

Even if it killed her.

The pack came first.

But, dear Eru, she wished—

Wishing was pointless. Roughly, she scrubbed her hand over her cheeks, hissing as the tear-salt soaked into the scratches on her hand that she hadn’t noticed receiving. Her hands, arms, legs, and feet were covered in bark-grime and shallow cuts from the climb.

Ducking her head to look at her legs meant lowering it under the canopy, back into the hot, fetid malaise of the forest; she jerked upright again, heart pounding, after less than an instant. A guttural, groaning whine tore out of her throat; looking at the sky and the clouds and the stars, her eyes burned.

“I can’t. I can’t do this.” Sobs cut her off as the wrongness of it sank into her bones. “But I can’t leave them.”

She would never forgive herself if she abandoned them, but she wasn’t strong enough to rejoin them; just the thought of climbing all the way back down, through the branches and the heat and the dark and the magic, was enough to set her crying, and if that weren’t enough, when she met them, she’d have to see Ori’s hatred and Thorin’s wary indifference and Fíli’s growing suspicion and Nori’s blank lack of recognition and they didn’t have any food and she’d run out of water that morning and she wasn’t strong enough, she wasn’t—

Curling into herself, she ground the heels of her hands against her eyes; she didn’t have any water left; crying was stupid and foolhardy and selfish and she couldn’t afford it.

She couldn’t afford to be selfish now.

The Company couldn’t afford for her to be selfish now.

But she couldn’t.

Pressing her forehead against the bark hard enough to hurt to try and keep her balance, a desperate prayer slipped past her lips almost before she’d thought it. “Please, Eru, I can’t do this myself. I can’t do this on my own. I can’t do this without you. Ple—” A sob cut off her final plea, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

A soft breeze ghosted in, wrapping around her and cooling her tears. Blinking her eyes open, she looked up as the butterflies took flight again, spurred by the wind. They spiraled up in a great wave, and for an instant, they formed a wall to the west, blocking out the sun and their silhouettes gilded by it. At the same instant, the breeze wrapped around her again, carrying with it the scent of Dwarves and Men, and the unmistakable smoke-tinged trace of an elder dragon.

The message was clear, and despite the danger promised with it, her despair faded, replaced by quiet—but no less strong for that—resolve. Lifting her eyes to the red-gold clouds overhead, she knew that Eru was with her.

“Thank you.”

* * *

 

Nori

 

“Nori?”

Nori opened her eyes, looking up reflexively; Belda was still out of view, but she smiled anyway. “What, don’t tell me you forgot I was coming up after you?” Glancing down at the ground, forty feet down and barely visible through the branches, she added ruefully, “Couldn’t make it any further than this, though. Here’s hoping down is easier.”

The Hobbit huffed lightly, voice growing nearer though Nori couldn’t make out any sound of movement. “It might be, for you. You’re stronger than I am, so…” Her feet lowered to a branch a bit higher than Nori’s, to her left. “You couldn’t have gone much farther, anyway; the branches get much thinner about twenty feet higher than we are.”

As she edged onto Nori’s branch, further out away from the trunk, Nori caught sight of her face; she couldn’t help but blurt, “Are you all right?”

Belda met her eyes, clearly startled; Nori would be lying to say that she didn’t find the girl’s eyes the slightest bit unnerving, but at the moment she was far more concerned with the smears of blood, grime, and tears on her cheeks. “I’m fine. I’m not happy about having to leave the sunshine, that’s all.”

“You did reach the top, then?”

She nodded. “I could see Erebor, and the edge of the forest.”

Nori wouldn’t have expected her to sound as though she’d rather reach Erebor than freedom, but she set that aside for the time being. “It’s close?”

“A few days, a week,” Belda shrugged.

But Nori couldn’t let herself forget, “If we can last that long.”

Belda nodded grimly, shoulders drooping slightly. Her expression was almost forlorn, and from what she’d seen of her over the day—and what she’d heard of her from Ori and Balin especially—Nori wouldn’t have expected her to be so expressive.

A moment later, she seemed to realize the same, and her expression and body language both closed off again, though hints of pain leaked through. “So,” she cleared her throat, avoiding Nori’s eyes, “are you ready?”

She shifted her weight, clearly wanting to move, but Nori held up a hand languidly. “Ah, not yet. Might be our only chance to have a private word for days,” she shrugged. Belda blanched at the mere mention of their talking; Nori made sure to keep her bearing unthreatening. “According to Dori, you and I were close before I forgot, but no one said much about us spending time together or being friends when they filled me in on what I’ve lost.”

Partway through, Belda had ducked her head; now she mumbled, “I don’t know about ‘friends’.”

Nori grinned; some response was better than nothing. “Well, go on, then.” The girl met her eyes, visibly confused (and hesitant, for some reason), and Nori elaborated, “Tell me about yourself, kitten.”

A short, teary laugh burst from Belda; she clapped a hand over her mouth, but lowered it with her tone a moment later. “Sorry, it’s just— you— you used to call me that. You said…” By the half-smile pulling at her lips, Nori guessed that Dori hadn’t been all wrong, after all, saying they were close. “You said I wasn’t ‘hardly big enough to be a cat-burglar’.”

At the impression of her, Nori’s grin widened; she didn’t quite have Nori’s mannerisms, but she certainly had the accent down pat. “When’d I say that, then?”

Belda winced slightly, bearing loosening up again. “Rivendell. You, um.” She cleared her throat. “After I let everyone know that I knew Fíli was a woman, you pulled me into an alcove and confronted me about why I hadn’t let on that I knew about you.”

That answered that question. When she didn’t continue, Nori raised her brows. “And?”

Finally relaxed entirely again, Belda shrugged. “It wasn’t my secret to tell.” Nori couldn’t muster the clarity to find any words. “The next day, you started pulling me into alcoves whenever I had a free moment and teaching me to pick pockets and size up marks and all sorts of things.” She shrugged loosely, leaning back on the branch as casually as if they were on solid ground; a pang struck Nori as she realized again just how young the girl really was. It was little wonder she’d taken her under her wing. “I asked why the third time or so, and you said that about being a burglar, and then that you weren’t ‘about to let such a rank amateur call herself a thief’.”

Nori chuckled. “That sounds like what I’d say.”

Stilling, Belda narrowed her eyes at Nori. She might have thought the girl was closing off again, but there was something playful in the tilt of her head. “But…?”

A helpless half-laugh burst from Nori, and she looked at the girl incredulously. “You walk like a cat. Even here,” she motioned at where Belda was sitting, and the leaves underneath her, “you’ve found the happy medium of cover and vantage, and I barely even heard you climbing when I knew full well you were there.” Belda had been growing steadily more red-cheeked as Nori spoke, and Nori grinned widely at her. “You’ve got better instincts than I ever did, kitten. If I know myself, which I do,” she winked playfully at Belda; the girl giggled, uncurling slightly, “I wanted you as an apprentice as soon as I noticed that.”

Belda gaped at her. “You…”

Abruptly, Nori realized that she’d obviously never said anything to the girl before. The fear of refusal took her by surprise, though. “If you want to be, that is.”

For a few moments, Belda only blinked at her. “…What?” Her eyes widened. “Oh—yes!” Letting out a teary half-laugh, she repeated, “Of course, yes.”

Nori couldn’t help but smile back at her, not sure whether she was so quickly growing fond of the girl because of their previous three months together or because she was just so genuine that Nori couldn’t not love her, just a bit. “All right, then.” A thought struck her, and she couldn’t resist. “Though—before we climb down—is there something between you and Kíli?”

The blush that rapidly covered her entire face was answer enough.

Nori grinned. “Aah, there is!”

Belda sputtered, “I’m just— the subject—”

Guessing where she was going with that, Nori cut her off. “Oh, no you don’t, I have Dori and Ori for brothers— I know the difference between being embarrassed at the subject and being embarrassed because it’s true. But good.”

The statement visibly shocked Belda. “What?”

Nori nodded, and repeated herself. “Good. I don’t know him, really—or at least, I don’t now—but from everything I’ve heard of him—and especially his Mum—” The Lady Dís sounded terrifying, and Nori seriously doubted she’d tolerate her son mistreating any woman “—I couldn’t name a better suitor.”

Mouth forming a perfect ‘o’, Belda just stared at her for a long moment.

“Why so surprised?” Nori would have thought she’d be relieved.

Hiding away her surprise, Belda shrugged. “Thorin doesn’t like me much.”

How lightly she said it—as though she were talking about the weather—implied to Nori that it meant far, far more. Just as lightly, she commented, “He seemed to like you fine a few minutes ago.”

At least, he’d been treating her like an equal; that didn’t always mean ‘liking’, but it did mean he respected her. Belda gave her a sardonic look. “As an ally, not as a niece-in-law.”

Nori winced. That did make a difference.

Expression falling into melancholy, Belda shrugged again. “Kíli’s the baby of the family and they’re protective of him; I’ve seen it too often with Hobbits to be cross with Dwarves for being the same.”

Nori had her doubts about that—mostly about why they’d specifically be protective of him where Belda was concerned—but she let it slide for the moment. “Speaking of protective Dwarves—”

“Ori.” Nori nodded; Belda visibly tensed, though her melancholy only deepened. Slowly, she divulged, “There’s a… There’s something I haven’t told the Company. It doesn’t— doesn’t change who I am, but it— and Ori figured it out, and now he doesn’t trust me.” The conflict and pain in her face had only strengthened as she went on, and despite knowing that those weren’t too hard to fake, Nori found herself believing the girl.

She’d been honest with Nori thus far, anyway, and Nori had a feeling that she’d said more just now than she would to anyone else in the Company, with the possible exception of Kíli.

Gently, Nori finished, “And he’s hurt and he’s angry about being lied to.” It would explain the way he was behaving.

Belda nodded, eyes on the branch under her hands. “And conflicted about whether he should do something about it or not. He said he wouldn’t, but…”

Curious, Nori cocked her head. “How d’you know?”

Belda shrugged again, minutely. “I’m good at reading people, especially when I’ve known them for a bit. Three months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to read him so well, but now it’s not hard.”

Her bearing didn’t change, despite her detached tone.

Nori stared at her for several moments. She’d just admitted to lying to them all, but she’d also said that it didn’t affect who she was. It was serious enough that she’d lost Ori’s trust when he figured it out on his own, but not enough for him to tell the others.

Nori could think of half a dozen secrets of her own that would have the same effect, and most of them weren’t objectively that bad. She sighed. “I’m no one to criticize anyone for keeping secrets. It’s not dangerous for the Company?” After a frozen instant, Belda’s head snapped up, her eyes wide; once her shock faded, her expression firmed and she shook her head decisively. Nori nodded. “All right. I’ll talk to Ori.”

She’d meant it to be a reassurance, but Belda’s eyes widened as though she’d said she’d stab her in the heart. “You can’t!”

She winced and glanced at the forest floor almost as soon as the exclamation left her lips, but it hadn’t been nearly loud enough for them to hear, by Nori’s estimation. But… “Why not?”

Why was she so alarmed at the idea?

Surprisingly, she answered almost immediately. “I promised I wouldn’t talk to you.”

…Did she actually just say that?

Catching sight of Nori’s incredulous stare, Belda lowered her eyes to the branch again and hunched in on herself, managing to make herself look even more absurdly small than usual. Nori had to strain to hear her. “Ori said he’d only keep my secret if I didn’t talk to him at all, and only spoke when spoken to to you and Dori.” Without raising her head, she shook it jerkily, her panic obvious even in the slivers of her expression that Nori could see. “If he knew I’d talked to you this much—”

“All right, kitten, I won’t say anything to him.” Belda relaxed immediately, raising her eyes to Nori’s, relief shining from them. But Nori couldn’t help but be curious. “Would you tell me?”

Blanching, Belda shook her head rapidly enough that she almost lost her balance.

Thinking of the drop, Nori hurried to promise, “I won’t tell anyone.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Almost as soon as she’d spoken, she blanched further and lowered her eyes.

Nori frowned. “Wh—” Understanding struck her like a war-hammer, though she hoped it was only misunderstanding. “Wait, you don’t think I’ll—”

“You would.”

Nori could only gape at her for nearly half a minute, unexpected hurt pulsing in her chest. Did Belda truly think so little of her? She caught sight of the bead in the girl’s hair, and it reminded her, “Wait— does Dwalin know?” Belda nodded. “And he’s fine with it?” She nodded again, more shortly. Nori felt too relieved to pay much mind to that, though. “If the high and mighty Captain of the Guard doesn’t have a problem—”

“You didn’t see his face!” Belda shut her mouth with a snap, seeming to regret her blurt, but continued after a moment, growing even paler. “When I told him, he—” She shuddered. “I really thought he’d— and he didn’t, and he still lo— likes me, but he almost—” She shook her head, beginning to tremble. “I can’t— It’s not not talking to Ori that’s horrible, it’s the way he looks at me, and I—” Another shake of her head, and Nori realized she was beginning to cry. “I can’t— I can’t— You—”

Without thinking, Nori scooted forward on the branch, away from the trunk. “Hey, shh,” she ignored the way her stomach flipped as the branch grew thinner, “shh, you don’t have to tell me, kit,” reaching Belda, she cupped her face in her hands, and made sure to look her dead in the eye, “but I swear to you, when you do tell me, I’ll hear you out before anything.”

Belda’s expression crumpled; as she began crying in earnest, Nori’s heart broke at how young she looked. “You promise?”

Impulsively, Nori pulled her into a hug, which the girl returned almost desperately. “Yeah, kit. I promise.”

For a few moments, they stayed like that.

Then the branch gave an ominous creak.

Nori’s heart skipped a beat. “Ah, let’s get a bit closer to the trunk, yeah?”

The sound was muffled in Nori’s jacket, but she was fairly sure Belda was laughing at her.

“Shush, you. We aren’t all as light as a kitten.” She poked Belda’s side without drawing away from her, and succeeded in getting the girl to laugh a bit more.

Carefully, they edged back to the trunk, and Nori pulled away just far enough to see Belda’s face. Clucking her tongue, she was already wiping the girl’s cheeks with the hem of her sleeve before she realized how much she was acting like Dori.

Putting aside that—frankly, horrifying—thought, she cupped Belda's face again. “Now, no more tears. Everyone’s probably thinking we got attacked by something nasty; we’d better get down.”

Sobering, Belda nodded. But her eyes danced a moment later. “Want me to hold your hand?”

“Oh, hush up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say? Your Ori rage in the comments fuels me. And yes, he is being a turd. I have a plan.  
> No notes today.  
> À bientôt!


	36. Ori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The feasts begin.

Ori squinted up at the dim shape of Nori as she climbed down, Belda still above her. Having her in his sight had already begun to slow his heart from its frantic gallop, but he doubted he’d actually be able to relax until she was on solid ground, beside him.

The only reason he hadn’t had a heart attack as soon as he realized she’d snuck up the tree while none of them were looking was that Belda had obviously gone, too, and he knew that there was nothing more dangerous in this forest than her. That had to be why everything stayed away from her. It explained so much, now he knew.

Of course, it didn’t explain why the deer hadn’t been afraid of her. Or the ponies, either.

But if there was one thing he did know, it was that Belda would never hurt Nori.

Bombur, he wasn’t sure—especially with his whinging, lately—but Nori? Never. She’d attack Thorin before she hurt Nori, and given the fact that she still hadn’t so much as raised a finger to him, despite their fights, he thought it would take significantly more than anyone decent would ever do to actually turn her against them.

He still hadn’t forgiven her, of course. She’d been lying to his face for months, and never even considered telling him the truth; putting Nori’s life at risk was just one more strike against her. He’d thought they were friends. He’d thought she and Nori were friends. Clearly, he’d been wrong.

And yet he couldn’t bring himself to tell anyone what he’d learned, even Fíli. If anyone needed to know, it was Dwalin and Kíli (and, to a lesser extent, Thorin, Fíli, and Nori), but he couldn’t do it. He’d opened his mouth to tell Fíli any number of times already, but the words refused to leave his mouth.

It didn’t help that it was completely barmy. He still didn’t even know how it was possible; dragons were the size of mountains, and Belda barely even came to his chin. But he had no doubt: whether she was a tiny dragon or there was some strange, Hobbit-y magic that made it possible, she was a dragon.

She was like Smaug.

And he couldn’t forgive her for that.

By the time Nori set foot on solid ground again, it was well into dusk; Ori could barely see anything ten feet from his face, and even his hand in front of his face was hard to make out. Nori rolled her eyes at him as he steadied her, but slung an arm around his shoulders in a combination of a hug and her using him as a crutch.

They moved out of Dwalin’s way as he came to stand under Belda, but only far enough for Nori to lean against a different tree as she caught her breath. Dwalin and Belda had a quick exchange that Ori couldn’t make out, but ended with him laughing as she appeared, dangling upside-down, from the bottom-most branch, grinning widely.

That only lasted a moment before she began to fall, though, and Dwalin caught her with a quiet curse. She yawned even as he was setting her on her feet again, and rubbed her eyes as she gave her report to Thorin.

Guilt flared up in his gut that he hadn’t even thought of how tired she’d been, quickly smothered by stubborn anger; if she was too tired, she should have said something. He wasn’t her keeper. Though…

Squinting, he leaned forward slightly to try and see. _‘Was she… crying?’_

“Yeah,” Nori answered flatly; he startled, embarrassed that he’d said it out loud. “She came down from up top like that. Wouldn’t say why.”

His eyes snapped to her, an ember of rage settling in his gut. “You…” He cleared his throat, “You, ah, you talked to her?”

She shrugged. “Not really. ‘You okay?’, ‘Yeah, leave it’, and then we climbed down. Why?”

She raised a brow at him with the last question, and he smothered a flush. “Ah, no reason.”

Her brow lowered into a scowl, and she shifted against the tree to face him more fully. “You actually think I forgot how you shouted at her a bit ago? I’m still cross with you for that.”

Rage flaring again, he clenched his jaw. “You don’t know—”

“I know that I’ve never seen you like that before,” she interrupted, frown deepening. “You were acting like she was holding a knife to my neck.”

At that, he couldn’t help but snap, “She was trying to get you killed—”

“She was trusting me to know my own limits, Ori, which is what I would expect from you.” He didn’t have a response to that. He looked away from Nori, but she only lowered her voice and continued, “I know you’re worried about me, but that’s a reason, Ori, not an excuse. The way you treated her was inexcusable.”

A denial was on the tip of his tongue, but there was no way to explain without breaking their agreement. He sighed. “I know.”

Nori’s hand landed on his shoulder, and she gave a reassuring squeeze. “Then do better, love.” He couldn’t help but smile at the gentle command, and couldn’t help but laugh when she continued sharply, “And for Mahal’s sake, apologize to the poor girl— She looks terrified of you!”

That, he could argue, and had just opened his mouth to do so when Balin spoke. He couldn’t make out the words, but he’d obviously seen something; he started to move forward before he thought, then stopped, remembering Nori.

But when he looked back at her, she waved him forward. “Go on, nuddadudê. Bring me back a report.”

The fact that she wasn’t insisting on coming with him was a bit concerning, but his curiosity proved stronger.

As he moved into earshot, Thorin’s muttered question was the first he heard of the conversation. “…s that?”

Belda’s eyes were fixed on a spot in the distance; Ori followed her gaze as she responded, “The first sign of life we’ve seen in days.” There was a spot of light in the distance— no, multiple dots, all tinged red-orange: firelight. After a short pause, she added, “Other than butterflies.”

Ori frowned incredulously at her, but didn’t have a chance to answer before Thorin snarled, “Elves.”

“Obviously.”

Dwalin cut off the impending argument flatly. “What do we do?”

Closing his mouth, Thorin looked again to the lights. It was a moment before he answered. “Nothing.”

Ori didn’t look at Belda, but her tone fairly dripped with incredulity. “You can’t be serious.”

“They’re Elves.”

“Yes, and we’re starving.”

Dwalin cut in, “Do you really think Belda can survive another week without food?”

Ori jolted as Belda snapped, “It’s not about me,” but her words didn’t disturb him as much as Dwalin’s.

“You’re—”

“One of fourteen, and all of us are starving.”

But Dwalin had a point; she was far, far thinner than when they’d entered the forest, enough so that even in the low light, he could see how hollow her cheeks were. Part of him couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed before. Another refused to feel any guilt for not seeing it.

“You—”

“Dwalin. She’s right.” Thorin’s voice lowered to a mutter. “As much as I hate to admit it.”

“It’s strange for me, too.” A week earlier, Ori might have laughed at how nauseous she sounded.

Firmly, Balin broke in, “One of us will have to approach them.”

Motion caught Ori’s eye as Belda nodded, then started to move toward the lights.

Thorin raised an arm to block her path. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Ori couldn’t see her expression in the near-pitch-blackness, but he guessed it was something sarcastic. “Oh, yes, of course, we should send a Dwarf to negotiate with Elves.”

“You’re not going.”

“Because there are so many people in the Company who could keep their temper, not to mention find the path again after leaving it.”

She said something after that, but Thorin spoke over her, rendering both incomprehensible to everyone— everyone but each other, it seemed, as the argument only grew fiercer.

“I’ll go.”

* * *

 

Balin

 

All four of those in earshot—though he wasn’t sure Dwalin or Thorin had noticed Ori’s presence yet—turned to Balin, gaping.

Knowing them, he’d lose any chance to speak if he gave either Belda or Thorin time to gather themselves. “Thorin, she’s right. She’s the only one of us who can even hope to deal successfully with the weed-eaters.” Thorin’s glower had been growing along with Belda’s satisfaction, but their expression swapped as he continued, “But he’s right, too, Belda, it’s too dangerous for you to go alone.”

Taking a breath, he stared down each one of them as he stated, “So Belda and I will both go, and the rest of you will wait here.”

Unsurprisingly, Dwalin was the first to react.

But Balin hadn’t expected Belda to grab Dwalin’s arm and tow him off before he got a full syllable out.

She barely stayed within sight, but Balin couldn’t hear her, either. He could only see their silhouettes, see Dwalin’s shape looming over her, rigid and unyielding, while her form curved into his, pulling and pleading. Slowly, he saw Dwalin’s shoulders fall and his back bend, ceding to her quiet siege like he never would to Balin’s stubborn assaults. After a handful of minutes, Dwalin fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to hers. She threw her arms around his neck once he drew back, clinging to him for several seconds before they both stood and rejoined Balin and Thorin.

Ori had rejoined his sister at some point—Balin hadn’t noticed when—and both of them had taken seats by the Heirs.

And there was another reason to seek out help. Kíli had woken up somewhat from the daze of the valley, but he still seemed to be in some sort of stupor. The closest comparison Balin could think of was that he was half-asleep, but he had no idea how to wake him completely up.

Once he was close enough, Dwalin grabbed Balin by the shoulders and bumped their heads together, far more gently than their usual gesture; before Dwalin could let go, Balin grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back for a longer contact. Dwalin’s hands spasmed, and after a long moment, he pushed Balin away, glaring mutely at him.

Balin didn’t mind. He understood what Dwalin meant. “Mahagniti, Dwalin.” _‘I promise.’_

 

The two of them walked—well, crept—in silence for a small while.

It took Balin that long to gather his courage. “I think I owe you an apology, lass.”

Despite how quietly he’d spoken, she clearly heard him, as her attention snapped to him, incredulous. “What? Why?”

Shoving down his remorse for the moment, he admitted, “For thinking the worst of you when you and Dwalin began to grow close.”

She huffed lightly. “That was ages ago, you don’t have to apologize for that.”

Remembering their conversation on the way out of Rivendell, shame welled up in his chest. He’d been so, so wrong about her. “Yes, lass, I do. I thought you had to be after his rank, or his wealth, once the mountain is reclaimed.” When she didn’t immediately respond, he added, “It’s happened before, though not often to Dwalin.” Usually to Thorin or the Heirs, or Glóin before he married Lemli. Dismissing his wayward thoughts, he focused again on the task at hand; impulsively, he stopped where he was so she would turn to face him fully. “You’ve proven me wrong over the last weeks, but I haven’t said, before. I’m sorry, Belda. I misjudged you quite terribly. And I’m proud to have you as my niece.”

Her eyes had widened with his apology, but it was his last pronouncement that brought tears to her eyes; she grinned. “I’m glad to have you too, Uncle. And I forgave you weeks ago.”

He half-laughed, more from relief than anything else. “Good to know.”

Sharing a smile, they headed forward again. After a moment, she chuckled quietly.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” she shook her head, still grinning, “I just think that you and Grandfather would have gotten on.”

He tilted his head, brow furrowed. “Is that your father’s father?”

Stopping dead in her tracks, she gave a full-body shudder. “No.” Shuddering again, she shook her head and resumed walking. “No, from what I’ve heard of Grandfather Mungo, he would have run screaming if he met any of you. No, my mother’s father, the Old Took.” A fond smile laced the title, but it faltered a moment later. “He only died three years ago.”

Her eyes and shoulders fell, breath hitching for a moment before she shook her head and straightened up again, smiling genuinely (if tremulously) at Balin. “I think he would have liked you, and Dwalin. He knew all sorts of stories about adventures, and he even liked Gandalf’s fireworks.” Eyes shining, she nodded to herself. “He would have liked you all.”

Touched, he responded seriously, “I’m honored that you think so.” She turned her smile on him, which he returned. After a few moments of silence, he remembered snippets of conversations he’d overheard, ones that implied things had been… not as they should be, long before she’d been orphaned.

But they were nearing the edge of the clearing; there was no more time to talk. From behind a tree, they spied a party of Elves that were visible through the trees, using the stumps of freshly-felled trees as seats, all of them eating and drinking and laughing merrily. At the far end of the clearing was a familiar face, though Balin only placed him after he noticed the crown of autumn leaves on his head.

Thranduil.

Clenching his jaw against a flood of old rage, he tapped Belda’s arm. She rolled her shoulders before she looked at him, brow furrowed. Careful to watch and make sure that she was understanding him, he gestured that while they would go in together, he should go first.

Brows snapping down, she shook her head adamantly, but he refused to be swayed.

He wouldn’t trust Thranduil if he said the sky was blue.

He wasn’t going to trust him not to attack Belda.

After a minute, the wind changed, carrying the smell of food toward them; despite what Belda seemed to think, the Company wasn’t days away from starving to death, they wouldn’t reach that point for a week or so yet, and Balin was able to ignore the temptation.

Belda, though, physically swayed toward the smell, hands clenching on the tree’s bark as sheer, hungry longing crossed her face. Catching herself, she leaned her forehead against the bark and squeezed her eyes shut. For a moment, watching the color drain from her face again, Balin was convinced she would pass out.

Jaw set, she opened her eyes and nodded at him, though he didn’t think she was pleased to cede the point.

Nodding, he gestured for her to shadow him. Straightening his tunic, he squared his shoulders and walked calmly into the clearing.

And as soon as his foot passed the boundary, all the light in the clearing went out at once.

The next few moments were a blur of half-heard movement and complete disorientation; when he felt something touch his arm, he couldn’t help but recoil.

“Hey, it’s me— it’s me.” Slowly, he reached out, unsure if the sound of Belda's voice had only been wishful thinking, but he found her bony—too bony—shoulder quickly. Her hands covered his, and she squeezed lightly. “All right?”

The hesitance in her voice tore at him, even as he understood that her audible concern meant that she didn’t hold his reaction against him. Heart slowing, he covered her hands with his free one. “Just surprised, iraknâtha. And you?”

Strands of her hair swept over his hands as she shook her head, but she dispelled his panic almost immediately. “No, I’m fine.” Frustrated strain entered her voice as she tensed. “But there isn’t a trace of them. Not a whiff, not a whisper. What… what do we do now?”

In the pitch-blackness, when all he had to go on was her voice, she sounded barely more than a child. But she had a point. The Elves were gone, and Balin knew better than to hope they’d come back.

Regretful, he shook his head. “Go back. There’s nothing else we can do.” A split-second of muscle turning to iron under his hands was all the warning he had before she pushed his hands away, a frustrated growl leaving her. “It’s not the end of the world, lass—”

“I know!” His brows shot up at her near-shout, but she lowered her voice an instant later, sounding as though she were backing away. “I know, I’m sorry, it just—” She made a sound he wished was anything but the half-sob it was. “We can’t go on like this. We can’t.”

She sounded near tears, but he wasn’t Dwalin. He didn’t know what to say. All he could do was shrug, helplessly. “We must.”

“That doesn’t mean much.”

“It does to Dwarves.” They’d be ravenous for a few days, but they’d live.

But she shot that down with nearly tangible bitterness. “Then explain Bombur.”

And he… he had no response to that.

A few moments of silence passed. He heard a quiet sniffle. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Reminding himself that she was young, yet, and under phenomenal stress, he gentled his tone. “It’s all right, lass. Now, let’s get b—”

Her eyes abruptly flared into sight, glowing more brightly than ever. He might have thought she’d been the one behind it, if her gaze hadn’t snapped behind him and to his right. Turning to look, his heart gave a leap to see the same sort of fire that had led them to the clearing in the first place. It was off in the distance, but it had to be the Elves.

“Is that…”

When she didn’t complete the obvious question, he answered grimly, “Yes.”

It was only a brief moment before she spoke again, firmly. “We should go after it.”

Wincing, he shook his head. “Belda—”

“No, they could be gone by the time we get back to the others. This could be our only chance.”

He opened his mouth to dispute the point, but he couldn’t. She was right. They had no way to know if the Elves would linger in a place where they already knew there were strangers, or if the new light would even be visible from the path.

And more than that, he couldn’t ignore how she’d felt under his hand a few moments earlier. Her shoulder had felt skeletal, her hands no less emaciated.

Dwalin was right. She wouldn’t last another week.

“You’re right.”

Teeth clenched, he began to walk toward the light, but she caught his arm after only a half-dozen steps. “Balin…” She took a deep breath; foreboding settled into his gut. “This time, let me go first.”

“Wh—”

“Maybe that’s why they left before— because they recognized you were a Dwarf. They won’t recognize me.”

He had to sigh, seeing the sense in her words despite how he hated it. “Not to mention they’ll be far more sympathetic to you.”

“Like I said.”

He only shook his head; he meant her state of health, not her non-Dwarvishness. Lowly, he muttered under his breath, “Dwalin’s going to kill me for this.” Sighing, he returned to his previous volume. “On your own head be it, lass, but if things turn sour, I’m not waiting for permission to help.”

He could almost hear her grin. “Dwalin would kill you twice for that.”

“I think he might just, at that.” Resignedly, he drew in a fortifying breath, hearing her do much the same. “Ready, lass?”

“Ready.”

She moved ahead, the top of her head silhouetted dimly by the dot of firelight. As he followed, it struck him anew that she wasn’t even tall enough to block his view of the light.

The foreboding in his gut grew heavier.

But he couldn’t risk the same result as before. For better or for worse, she would have to go first.

He only hoped Dwalin would forgive him.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

Kíli blinked as the dot of light he’d been watching vanished. Clumsily, he rubbed his eyes, but the light still didn’t reappear.

A sound cut through the silence, but he couldn’t place it. Most of the Company’s heads snapped up, but Dwalin was the only one to blanch. Dimly, Kíli wondered why.

Nori seemed pale, too, but that was probably just… tired— tired-ness. Whatever the word was.

Another sound came, this time loud enough that Kíli thought it was Belda’s name, and Dwalin and Nori both bolted toward it so quickly that Kíli barely even saw the motion.

Why— That didn’t make sense, why would they…

Frowning, he rubbed his eyes again, forcing himself to think back.

Belda and Balin had gone toward the Elves.

They hadn’t come back yet.

Someone was yelling Belda’s name, which meant…

Which meant…

Which meant Belda was in trouble.

Ice flooded his veins and he was running after Dwalin before he thought, heart pounding.

The only thought he could manage was a desperate, wordless, frantic prayer to Eru, the overwhelming need for her to be safe.

He didn’t notice as his mind cleared, only that keeping his balance grew easier as he bolted toward Balin’s shouts.

He didn’t notice the fatigue fall away from him, only that he caught up to Dwalin and Nori before they’d gotten two-thirds of the way to Belda.

He didn’t notice the surge of strength as it struck him.

Not yet.

* * *

 

Balin

 

Balin’s terror for Belda didn’t abate as Dwalin, Nori, and Kíli thundered into the clearing.

He felt no relief when Dwalin took her into his arms.

His heart didn’t calm when the three of them tried to wake her, just as he had.

He paid little mind to the rest of the Company as they joined the five of them.

He paid less mind to Kíli’s sudden alertness.

But he couldn’t help but notice that it was when Kíli—not Dwalin or Nori or Balin himself—leaned in close and pleaded with her to wake that she did, a scream on her lips.

She struggled frantically against Dwalin’s hold, panicked half-words and terrified Hobbitish pouring from her in equal measure.

He could barely see, but he saw Dwalin release her, despite continuing to plead with her.

He saw Belda recoil from Nori’s voice when she called her name.

He saw Kíli pull her close, somehow avoiding her flailing limbs, and cradle her face in his hands.

The Prince didn’t say a word, but Belda’s fighting slowed, then stopped, and Balin saw the moment she came fully back to herself. Expression crumpling, she fisted her hands in Kíli’s jacket and pressed her forehead to his. His hands fell to her waist, and for a rare moment, everything was still and silent.

Balin’s heart finally slowed, and he let himself breathe. She wasn’t dead, like he’d thought at first. She was fine. His niece was fine.

She was fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *grins* I enjoy writing whump and angst, can you tell? And yeah, Dwalin is absolutely right, she needs food more than the rest of them and she needs it *now*.  
> Notes: 'Nuddadudê' means 'my tiny brother'. 'Iraknâtha' means 'niece'.  
> Next chapter, things get interesting. (^u^)  
> À demain!


	37. Fíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The third feast.

Fíli couldn’t help but recoil from Belda as she screamed, bloodcurdling like she had been at Beorn’s.

She couldn’t help but recoil further as Belda fought like a wildcat, eyes blazing like one of the creatures in the woods, pupils narrowed into inhuman slits. When Kíli grabbed her, Fíli opened her mouth to shout a warning, but her words died in her throat as Belda calmed.

A chill trickled down her spine at the sight, and worsened as she realized that Kíli had come back to himself just as Belda was knocked out. There was something going on, something more, something wrong.

Something inhuman.

She shuddered; Ori immediately looped an arm around her waist. “You all right?”

Unable to lie to him, she only shook her head and turned to bury her face in his shoulder. He was right about Belda.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

A tiny heartache stabbed at Dwalin as Kíli succeeded where he’d failed.

That had been the first time Dwalin had ever been unable to calm her. Logically, he guessed that it was a combination of the forest’s influence and whatever had sent her to sleep in the first place, but it hadn’t helped that he’d been genuinely afraid to hold on to her. When she’d been asleep, he’d realized all over again how fragile she looked, and when she’d begun to fight, he hadn’t been able to shake the fear that if he tried to keep her still too forcefully, he’d break her wrists.

He’d never so much as bruised her before, but she’d never been in this condition before.

Thorin growled inarticulately and the two barely-adults separated, hands lingering as though they had to fight not to stay together, and Belda came straight to Dwalin’s waiting arms. Despite how steadily she’d walked over, he could feel her trembling—which worsened every time Thorin raised his voice from the deadly murmur he was leveling at Kíli—and he tightened his arms around her.

Tearing his eyes away from Thorin and Kíli, his gaze lingered bemusedly on Fíli—who wasn’t even looking at her brother, for some reason—and Ori—who looked genuinely concerned, for all that he’d been giving Belda the cold shoulder for days—before settling on Nori.

He’d caught the hurt that had flashed over her face when Belda recoiled from her, but hadn’t been able to spare her any further thought, not when Belda was so distraught. Now he met her eyes over Belda's head and saw the pain still in her expression, mixed with something he was reflexively reluctant to call longing as she watched the two of them. It was only wishful thinking, it had to be—

But he hadn’t thought she could be his One, either. He hadn’t even thought she could be a woman.

He’d missed so much simply because he wasn’t willing to consider it. What…

What if he was right?

There was still more than one explanation possible, but maybe…

Maybe.

Now wasn’t the time to ask, but he still raised his brows at her, the only way he could ask.

She shook her head slightly, but it was with a melancholic half-smile that he took to mean she didn’t mind his concern.

Finally, Thorin moved away from Kíli; the pup wandered over to his sister, who pulled him into a fierce hug. “Balin, Belda, report.”

Belda’s trembling worsened for an instant, but her expression was clear when she turned around in his arms to face out as Balin answered. “We reached the Elves as planned, but they vanished as soon as I set foot in the clearing. Then…” Balin only hesitated for an instant, but it was enough for Dwalin to notice, and for Thorin. “We made the decision to investigate the second fires and attempt to contact them again.”

“Without consulting your king?” Thorin’s expression was growing darker; Dwalin guessed that Balin noticed, as well, as he only shook his head in response. “I’m surprised at you, Balin. I mi—”

“It was my idea.” In the silence that followed Belda’s interruption, Dwalin’s eyes fell resignedly shut; Thorin was not going to react well to this. After another few moments of tense silence, Belda continued, voice shaking slightly, “Balin thought that we should talk to you first. I convinced him that we couldn’t afford the travel time.”

“You.” Reflexively, Dwalin’s eyes shot open and his arms tightened around Belda. He’d heard that tone before from Thorin, but only when someone he cared deeply for had been put in danger.

But the way he was looking at Belda…

She swallowed, grip on Dwalin’s forearms tightening slightly, but went on, “There was no guarantee that the Elves would still be there—”

“You put the Company at risk!” The way Thorin was looking at Belda, and the low, deadly way he was speaking, now— Dwalin had been right, it wasn’t the way he was to guards or idiots who’d put his family at risk, it was the way he was to Kíli and Fíli, or Dís, or Balin, or Dwalin himself. It was the way he was when he’d almost lost his family over their own stupidity.

This meant that there was hope for Thorin accepting her completely (and as a niece-in-law) someday, but for today, it only made Dwalin’s blood run cold.

He never knew when to stop when he was like this.

But Belda spoke with feigned spine, stiff against Dwalin’s chest, “Greater risk than being in this forest at all? That’s likely.”

“Separated—”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, that—”

Thorin roared, abruptly, “That was not your decision to make!”

Despite trembling worse than ever, now, Belda roared back without a moment’s hesitation, “It was the only decision to make, and it was mine to—”

“You are not the leader of this Company!”

“I know—”

With two quick steps, Thorin stood inches from her, stooped slightly to look her in the eye; her shout had cut off as soon as he moved, but she still didn’t make a sound as he hissed, “Then do not challenge me.”

Her grip on Dwalin’s arm turned to iron as she froze. A glance down was all he needed to see that she was grey-faced and wide-eyed as she watched Thorin; the king in question straightened as he took a step hurriedly back. Looking at him, Dwalin could see the realization, the regret, but those barely lasted an instant before anger hardened his expression again.

Looking at the rest of the Company, Thorin turned his back on Dwalin and Belda; Belda started breathing again. “We’ll camp here for the night. Kíli, you’re on first watch. Bifur, second. Dori…”

Dwalin tuned him out, focused on the girl in his arms. “Kit.” She didn’t so much as twitch; worried, he tried to turn her in his arms, or to move around her to her front, but her grip on him was still white-knuckled. “Kit, you’re safe. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Turn around. Don’t look at him, look at me.”

After nearly a minute’s further coaxing, he got her to turn and latch onto his jacket rather than his arms. “Kit. Hey, kit, look at me.”

Shaking, she did so jerkily. The fear in her face broke his heart, and he couldn’t keep from dropping to his knees and embracing her more securely; she buried her face in his shoulder with a near-inaudible sob.

Softly, he shushed her crying, making sure to glare daggers at Thorin when he caught his eye.

To Thorin’s credit, he did look genuinely remorseful, but he still didn’t walk over to explain himself, or to apologize.

Dwalin wasn’t going to forgive him easily for that.

Once Belda’s breath steadied a bit, Dwalin turned his attention completely to her. “Are you ready to talk?”

Sniffling, she nodded.

“What did you hear? Whatever it was, I doubt he meant it.”

Her breath shook for a moment, but she answered, voice somewhat muffled. “Longo used to say that. We— He was the head of the house, and he— Whenever I disobeyed, he’d say— And if I didn’t give in right away, he’d lock me in m— my room for a day— or more— and I just—”

“Oh, kit…” Heartache wound tight around his ribs, he readjusted his arms around her, holding her tight to him with one hand at the back of her head.

After a minute or so, quiet footsteps drew his eyes up. Nori half-smiled, holding up his and Belda’s packs, and mouthed, _“Bofur.”_

What might have been a laugh shook in his chest, and he returned her smile gratefully.

She set the packs down and moved away, back to her brothers; Dwalin frowned at the pang he felt to watch her go.

It wasn’t as though they were married, or even courting. Her place was with her family, as his was with Belda. Wishing that she could stay with him, with Belda, was pointless.

But he couldn’t stop wishing it.

Shoving thoughts of Nori to the back of his mind, he drew back from Belda just far enough to see her face, and leaned his forehead against hers. “All right for tonight?”

Lips twitching into a vague attempt at a smile, she nodded; he snorted softly and kissed her forehead before releasing her to grab their packs.

They settled in to sleep beside each other, and Dwalin quickly fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Deep enough that when Belda squirmed carefully out of his arms, he didn’t even stir.

* * *

 

Belda

 

It wasn’t hard to creep away from Dwalin—technically, anyway; she hated sneaking away like she had something to hide, but he needed the sleep and she didn’t want to risk waking anyone else up—or to pick her way through the sleeping Company.

Kíli saw her coming, once she was partway there, and lifted his arm in a silent invitation when she was a few paces away. A bubble of warmth rose in her chest, but it was smothered by the chill still clinging to her. Fighting not to curl into herself, she pulled his arm a bit higher and tucked herself under his arm, plastered against his side.

The change in position meant that his arm could either wrap around her waist or rest on the ground. She knew which she preferred, but he stiffened as she tugged on his arm; she stiffened, as well, doubt creeping in. Did he want to keep his distance after what Thorin said earlier?

But after a long moment, he released the breath he was holding and adjusted his arm to loop around her more comfortably, she guessed. It had the added benefit of leaving his hand in the perfect position to settle on her waist, the span of it covering her ribcage halfway up to her underarm.

If Thorin or Dori could see them, she knew they’d throw a fit at how unseemly the embrace was—Dwalin would probably just raise an eyebrow at them until they were a bit more decent; Nori would laugh herself hoarse and give them two thumbs up—but Belda didn’t care. He was warm and she was cold and the closer she could get to that heat, the better.

His voice was barely a murmur when he spoke, but given that he was meant to be on watch, she wasn’t about to criticize. “Not that I’m complaining, but shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

Her breath shook at the thought. “Probably, but that’s not going to happen.”

The muscles in his chest moved, slightly, as he glanced down at her. “Bad dreams?”

The concern in his tone almost warmed her from the inside out, but she still had to shake her head. “Too-good ones.”

He didn’t respond audibly, but confusion was rolling off his scent, and he squeezed her waist gently when she didn’t go on.

Shivering, she shifted closer still to him. “Earlier, when— Well, I dreamt— I was at a feast— a banquet— I don’t know, but something with acres of food.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad.”

“It wasn’t, that’s the problem.” Looking up at him, the feeling of fabric brushing against her injured ear made her shiver; she’d been deliberately avoiding letting anything touch it, but evidently, it was more sensitive now. “I didn’t even think about you.” Blushing, she tore her eyes from his lips. “Um, any of you.”

He started to speak, but had to clear his throat first; it still came out huskier than normal. “Well, it was a magic dream.”

“Still.” This time, she forced herself to keep her eyes on his.

But this time, she saw that he was staring at her mouth before he tore his gaze away. A wave of heat swept through her, though it didn’t last long against the dream’s chill, as he let out a strained half-laugh. “If I wasn’t on watch—”

“I know.” She rested a hand on his heart as she spoke, and felt his breath shudder in his chest. The dream still haunted her—what sort of rándýr-verndari, what sort of daughter, what sort of Mate could so completely forget about her pack?—but she shoved the memories away. The dream wanted her so focused on it she’d forget about them? Well, she was going to give so much of her attention to Kíli that she forgot the dream, so there.

His free hand came up to cover her hand on his chest, and squeezed lightly. “But are you all right? I don’t just mean from the spell. We haven’t talked since before…”

“Before Nori fell.” She couldn’t help but look over at Nori where she slept as she named her, lifting her head from Kíli’s chest.

“Yeah. Are you all right?”

Belda considered it for a few moments, then slowly nodded as she met his eyes. “Yeah. It hurt, at first,” more than she knew how to say, “but it’s not as though she’s a different person now. We can get to know each other again.” She hoped.

“You’re sure?” His eyes were soft, though he still had to snap them up from her lips now and then, and she smiled.

“I’m sure.”

He smiled to match her. “I’m glad.”

Her smile widened, and she looked back over at Nori. She wasn’t entirely used to the idea of Nori forgetting everything, but she would be, in time. And now the shadow of what Nori had said on the cliffs wouldn’t hang over them whenever they talked; Belda knew that that meant that Nori still thought the same as that, but this time, Belda could say something to her before it could happen again, explain properly.

Maybe… maybe tell Nori about her mother. She still hadn’t told anyone, really, just let bits and pieces slip when she didn’t have any other choice, but telling Dwalin about how afraid she was of the burden of being a dragon had made her feel light as air, and even now, it wasn’t so bad, knowing that he knew and he had faith in her.

She wanted that with her thoughts of her mother. She was tired of feeling like they were a millstone around her neck.

“Does it hurt?”

She barely heard the question, still thinking of Nori and her mother, and couldn’t think what he meant. Did talking to Nori hurt? What did that mean? “Hmm?”

A wave of heat flooded through her with a full-body shudder, pooling between her hips and leaving her heart at twice the speed it had been; it was all she could do for a long moment to keep herself from jumping him. It wasn’t until a moment later that she realized he’d traced a finger, feather-light, around the new crescent in her ear. Some of the heat she was trying not to think about rushed straight to her face; it didn’t make the feeling of her pulse any easier to ignore.

And it wasn’t for another moment that she properly understood that the noises he was making were flustered apologies.

“No, it— that— um,” she cleared her throat, determinedly not looking at him (or thinking of how easy it would be to turn around and snog him), “that— that, that didn’t hurt.” Pain was, quite literally, the opposite of that, actually. “It— it’s fine.”

Steeling herself, she turned her head so that her ear was pressed against his chest and not within reach; if he did that again, she didn’t know what she’d do, other than something she’d regret in a few hours. She still couldn’t look at him, though. Even as he began to apologize again, “Still, I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s fine.”

She couldn’t think of any way to go on, aware that she’d been a bit abrupt, but hearing his voice—and feeling it move through her—was bad enough. Hearing him talk about— about what had just happened which she was not thinking about, she was not— would have been even worse.

He didn’t seem to have any idea what to say, either. She could count the number of times there’d been any awkward silences between them on one hand, but this went on the longest yet.

She was a bit grateful for that. It gave her time to get her heart to slow and her hands to unclench on his jacket.

A quiet grumble from the direction of the Company nearly stopped her heart; when she recognized the voice as Thorin’s, her heart returned to the gallop it had been. Kíli stiffened until he felt like stone under her.

She bit back a curse as her blood rushed down again.

But after a moment, it was clear that Thorin had only been talking in his sleep. If he were waking up, he’d have already begun yelling at them. Closing her eyes, she thought resolutely about the Fell Winter.

But Kíli distracted her again. “I’m sorry about that. What Thorin said, earlier. He shouldn’t have.”

Swallowing thickly, she focused again on her memories; unable to trust her voice, she only shrugged.

“No, I mean it.” Calloused fingers ran along her face until he was cupping her face, pulling a wistful sigh from her; if they weren’t in this bloody forest, or in earshot of the Company…

He didn’t try to move her head, but it was clear he was asking for her full attention. Sighing again, fatalistically, she did look up at him, and even managed to keep her eyes on his as he spoke.

“He never should have said that. We’d be dead if it weren’t for you, all of us. Even if we survived the Goblins, Beorn never would have agreed to help us, and then we either would have starved to death by now or been overtaken by Azog’s forces. I—” He hesitated visibly, but continued after a moment, voice soft and face red. “I’m glad you’re here, with m— with us.” Even more softly, he amended, “With me.”

Slowly, he leaned in, giving her time to resist; she appreciated it, but didn’t think she could muster the willpower even if she wanted to. His forehead gently met hers, and he stopped there. Closing her eyes from the sheer relief that he wasn’t going to start something she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from finishing, she leaned into his touch, covering his hand with hers.

A minute earlier, she would have thought even that chaste contact would undo her, but instead her heart slowed. It wasn’t any easier not to think of how much she wanted to touch him and him to touch her in return, but her body proved more easily satisfied than her mind.

She almost laughed as she realized: it was because he was her Mate. The same instincts that were pulling her to snap and growl and defend her pack even from themselves were pulling her to claim him as her Mate, in any way possible. That ache wouldn’t completely leave until they were married, she knew, but this sort of embrace—especially as long as it was lasting—was not something Hobbits did unless they were Mates, or family. It was enough for now.

Scent regretful, he sighed and sat up again; she kept her eyes closed and simply settled against his chest, breathing him in, and relished the brief peace. “I missed this.”

Affection and contentment swirling in his scent, he pressed a lingering kiss to the top of her head. “I missed you.”

She smiled, more content than she could remember being for weeks.

He stiffened abruptly; she stifled a sigh. There went peace.

“Do you see that?”

The alarm in his scent pulled her into opening her eyes; as soon as she did, she sat straight up, adrenaline clearing her mind as she recognized the firelight blazing through the trees. “They’re back!”

“They just appeared while I was watching.” A chill ran down her spine at that; considering the size of the blaze and the fact that the Elves definitely knew they were there, that was a bit too much of a coincidence.

But there was no time for theories yet. Exchanging a quick, grim glance, they stood and split up, waking the Company quietly.

She woke Dwalin first, of course, while Kíli woke Thorin, and listened to their conversation as she woke the others. Thorin cursed darkly, and loudly enough that a few of the Company woke at the sound. “How long ago did it appear?”

“A few seconds before I woke you, Uncle.”

Passing by them on her way to Óin and Glóin, she commented, “It’s exactly like the other tw—”

“I can see that for myself.” The sheer force of his interruption knocked her breath from her. Once her mind had cleared, she’d recognized that he couldn’t have known that he was echoing Longo, couldn’t have known how she’d react. But the sliver of comfort she’d drawn from that evaporated at the dismissal. He might not have meant it like Longo had, but she’d still lost some of his trust.

Chest aching, she only glanced at Kíli long enough to see the sympathy in his expression before she kept moving.

Balin joined Thorin and Kíli, voice tight. “Thorin, what course do we take?”

It was several moments before he answered, long enough for her to wake the rest of the Company, though not quite long enough for her to rejoin Dwalin. “I’ll negotiate with the Elves.”

The words jolted through her, and she blurted before she thought, “Thorin, there was a reason I was the first—”

“This is not your decision—”

The venom in his voice hurt, but she interrupted through her wince, “But you agreed—”

“And now I disagree.”

He really meant it. He really, actually meant it. Beginning to be properly alarmed, she moved closer and lowered her voice. “Thorin, you’re the leader of the p— the Company, you can’t—”

“Do not think that you can dictate—”

“I’m not trying to dictate an—”

“You do not have the right to make these decisions—”

“I know that—”

Firing off a Khuzdûl curse too quickly for her to catch, he half-shouted, “Mahal, why didn’t I leave you in Rivendell?!”

All her breath left her in a horrified gust, and all she could do was gape at him as he blurred, pleading silently with Yavanna, Tauron, Eldfreja, Mahal, and most of all, Eru, for him to take it back.

But he didn’t. He turned his back on her with a grimace like in the Misty Mountains.

Dwalin reached her a moment later, pulling her into his arms, but even that didn’t touch the gut-wrenching knowledge now pounding in her chest. He didn’t want her. He’d cast her out of the pack, and this time with full knowledge of what he was doing and what it meant.

Fighting a sob, she clung to Dwalin with all the force she could muster.

Voice now tightly controlled and far quieter, Thorin ordered, “I’ll go first. The rest of you, stop at the edge of the light and wait for my signal. Fíli, Kíli, with me.”

With that, he stalked off toward the lights, Fíli following a beat before Kíli fell in line behind her. The rest of the Company trailed after them, single-file.

Dwalin nudged her, voice soft and scent regretful. “Come along, kit.”

Forcing herself to let go of him, she wiped her cheeks roughly and shook her head. “Let go of me.”

“Kit—”

“I want you able to fight, Uhdad.” She met his eyes through the blur she couldn’t shake, pleading with him to understand. “If you’re holding me, you can’t reach Grasper and Keeper.”

Scent conflicted, he held her eyes for a long moment before finally sighing. He took a single step back from her. “You go first. I’ll watch your back.”

As much as she loved that he was so worried, she had to shake her head. “I’m a better rear-guard than you. I have better ears.”

His face contorted, eyes shining. “I can’t leave you unprotected, kit. Don’t ask it of me.”

The heartache in her chest redoubled, but before she could say a word, Nori stepped beside and between them, resting a hand on each of their shoulders. “Here’s an idea: I’ll be rear-guard with the kitten-burglar and watch her back while she watches yours.” Belda and Dwalin shared an uncertain glance; looking between them, Nori pointed out, “I’m twice as quiet as anyone else here; I won’t get in Belda’s way as far as that goes. Did I ever teach you thief-sign?”

Glancing sheepishly at Dwalin, Belda nodded; he let out a half-laugh and muttered something in Khuzdûl that sounded suspiciously like ‘of course’.

Nori nodded to Dori’s back as he trailed after the others. “G’wan, then. I’ll keep her safe.”

Eyes softening even further as he looked at Nori, Dwalin murmured, “I know you will.”

If Belda hadn’t felt so wretched, she might have laughed; was that what she and Kíli looked like together?

But Dwalin did move forward, and Nori flashed the sign for ‘move’ at Belda with a wink.

Eyes welling up at the affection in Nori’s scent, Belda sent back a sign Nori had told her before meant ‘no back-stabbing’ and followed Dwalin.

Behind her, she heard Nori chuckle as she fell in line behind Belda.

It was a few minutes walk before they even got within earshot of the feast; as the ambient light brightened, the Company made an effort to quiet their movements. It was something, at least, but it wasn’t much. As she drew closer to a small copse, Belda noticed Dori, then Dwalin glance into it, then shake their heads.

Just as she was about to pass it herself, all the light—from the fires, from the stars, from everything—disappeared, and chaos reigned.

Belda’s head reeled; she lifted a foot to step back, but somehow fell on her face. When she pushed against the ground, she flopped onto her side, and when she tried to sit up, someone tripped over her with enough force to send her rolling until she hit a tree.

All around her, the Company was shouting each others’ names, all of them growing progressively more distant. Opening her mouth to call for Dwalin, Belda sat up, and the only thing that left her was bile as her stomach revolted against the sudden motion.

As soon as she was done, she shoved away from the drips, which only sent her head spinning anew, and she barely managed to brace herself on a tree root before she was retching again. There was nothing left in her stomach to bring up, but still it rebelled, and every motion, whether aimed toward movement in any direction or simply speech, brought on fresh dry-heaving.

She couldn’t move toward the distant shouts she heard, she couldn’t call for help, she couldn’t even call for Dwalin.

Finally, she gave up, staying as motionless as possible when she couldn’t stop shaking, and waited for the world to settle.

The Company’s voices were gone. The light was still gone. There was nothing she could do.

Yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that escalated quickly. Fairly sure that could be Thorin's middle name, actually. Dude has literally no impulse control.  
> Oh, did you think the Belda angst was done? Think again!  
> Granted, it wouldn't have been nearly that bad if they hadn't been in Mirkwood, but still. She's got a lot of issues; they aren't all going to be taken care of at once.  
> I'm starting to freak out about my disappearing buffer. I've only written up to chapter forty-three! *running around, screaming*  
> Well, if updates slow down, you know why.  
> À demain!


	38. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One down, twelve to go.

Gradually, the light returned and her nausea faded. She had to wait for several minutes after trying to move too quickly, but eventually, she was able to stand, if shakily.

She’d bumbled a few yards away from where she had been, but found where the Company had been fairly easily. Despite the delay, everyone’s scents were still fairly fresh; they also led in completely different directions. None of them led north or east, but apart from that, there was nothing in common between them.

Feeling sick for reasons that had nothing to do with the physical, she followed the scents to the edge of the clearing, to try and find Thorin first. He was the leader, after all, and as much as she wanted to find Dwalin first, it was for the good of the pack if she found their commander before anyone else.

But there was no scent to follow.

She retraced her steps half a dozen times, even going back to the path and back, following Thorin’s scent, and every time, she lost it at the clearing. The only explanation was the same magic that had wiped away the light, but what had happened to him?

There was no trace of the Elves, either.

They must have taken him, but why?

She growled at her own stupidity. The third feast had been a trap. That was why it was so much larger, that was why it had only appeared when Kíli was looking, that was why they’d taken Thorin, because they wanted someone to interrogate.

And she’d known it— she’d known something was wrong, and she’d said nothing.

She should have said something. She should have shaken off Thorin’s rejection and insisted on being the first to approach again.

Scrubbing a hand over her eyes, she turned her back on the clearing and circled the group of scents, trying to decide which was the strongest and thus, the best to follow.

She wasn’t sure how to feel when it was Kíli’s.

Heart aching, she glanced back at where she’d picked up Dwalin’s scent. It wasn’t quite as strong, but it was strong enough to follow.

But it was strong enough that she could pick it up later. Hating herself a bit, she crept along Kíli’s trail, starting from the copse Dwalin had glanced at before the lights went out. He made the most sense to find first: with Thorin gone, he and Fíli were the next in line, and Fíli’s scent wasn’t half as strong as his; he was the youngest in the Company, besides Belda, so he’d be the most underestimated if someone had them and he’d be the most at risk if that someone knew who he was; he was a strong fighter, stronger than Óin and Bombur; and she wanted to find him, as much as she wanted to find Dwalin.

Maybe that wasn’t much of a reason as far as logic went, but it was a reason nonetheless, and motivation enough to keep her moving even when her scratches from climbing the tree—and her hunger and thirst—began to make themselves loudly known.

As she walked on and on, her urgency faded, and with it, the adrenaline that had been holding everything else at bay.

More than once, she only just caught herself as her head swam. More than once, she had to stop for a short rest as she went cold. More than once, it was only through sheer force of will that she kept the darkness at the edge of her vision from swallowing her whole.

It wasn’t fatigue. She’d been resting half the day.

It wasn’t anything that she could fix without a kitchen at hand.

And she knew from experience that if she let herself stop moving, she wouldn’t be able to start again.

A spot of color caught her eye just ahead. For a few seconds, she just blinked at it, trying to bring it into focus.

Then she recognized Kíli.

Her breath caught in her throat even as her heart spurred into double-time, and the adrenaline that gave her the strength to rush to him made her clumsy; she tripped ten feet from him and had to scramble on her hands and knees the rest of the way.

He was unconscious, face-up and breathing, but with a grey-blue pallor that only made her terror sharper. Sweeping his hair off his face, she called his name, desperately; the entire area—including him—stunk of something, but she couldn’t focus on the scent, couldn’t focus on anything but him.

Was this how he’d felt when she was asleep? She remembered the dream—how perfectly wrong it was—remembered waking into a dark place that her mind immediately identified as the cellar at Bag-End—she’d only been locked in there a handful of times, but every one of them had been nightmare fodder—remembered fighting whoever was holding her down, remembered flinching away from her mother when she reached for her, and she remembered him. She remembered his scent, so unmistakably his—theirs—that even before she realized she was dreaming, she couldn’t fight him.

But she didn’t remember his expression. She didn’t remember what had been in his scent. Had he felt like this?

There was something on his breath, something strange, something wrong like the forest was wrong, but it was fading already, and within a few minutes, faded completely. She’d flagged again after a minute and slumped onto his chest to rest, and so felt the change in his heartbeat a half-second before his eyes flew open with a gasp. She pushed upright at the same moment he did, heart pounding with such relief that she couldn’t stop herself from kissing him.

A moment later she realized what she was doing and pulled back, clapping a hand over her mouth as she met his eyes. She could still feel him, though, his lips warm and chapped on hers, his beard just long enough to scratch against her skin enticingly.

He looked as shocked as she was that she’d done it; stomach in knots, she blurted, “I’m sorry!”

He startled, slightly, at the words, then shook his head, a blush rising in his cheeks. “No, it— it’s fine—”

“No, I shouldn’t have—”

“I don’t mind—”

“Still, it’s not—”

“Really, I don’t—”

“Wh— what happened?” He blinked at her; she flapped a hand at him and the general area, face hot. “It smells like s— something foul attacked you.”

His brow furrowed as his eyes fell to his feet. “Yeah, it—” Recognition jolted through his scent as he sat bolt upright. “There was a spider! Huge,” he gestured widely with his hands, nearly hitting her in the face once or twice, “it dropped down, I thought— but—” His motions slowed, then stilled as his brow furrowed again and he met her eyes. “Why didn’t it kill me? It’s not like I could fight back.”

One possible answer came easily to her, but she bit her lip against it, dropping her eyes.

“…Do you know?”

Her face heated further; she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. “Well, it— it— I think— it might have left you alone be— because you smell like me.”

A moment after she said it, it occurred to her that he might assume that it was only because they’d been cuddling a few hours previous. As his scent turned embarrassed and bashful, she decided not to bring it up if he didn’t ask.

There was more to his scent, something satisfied but at the same time, not, but she couldn’t place it at the moment. Her head felt like it was full of cotton.

At that thought, she realized, “Why are you so awake all of a sudden? You’ve been strange for weeks.”

Judging by the look he gave her, he wasn’t going to let the previous topic rest for long, but he only snorted lightly and lurched to his feet. “You’re just noticing now?”

Thinking back, he had been this alert after she woke up, and she flushed as she glared half-heartedly at him. “I have been a bit preoccupied.”

As she spoke, she accepted his hand and he pulled her up. But as soon as she was on her feet, everything went black and cold.

When the darkness lifted a moment later, the first thing she saw was Kíli’s face, too close for them both to be standing. “…da? Belda!”

“‘M fine.” Relief flooded his scent, but he didn’t exactly look impressed; blinking her vision clear, she repeated more coherently, “I’m fine, I just stood up too fast.”

Worry replaced the relief in his scent, mixed with a tinge of irritation. “That was not ‘standing up too fast’, Belda, you were out for almost ten seconds.”

As she tried to stretch, she realized he had one arm under her knees, the other behind her shoulders, and with how far away the ground was, he was still standing. Thinking of how strong he had to be, holding her full weight and still able to hold a conversation, only made more blood rush to her head. “Well, I’m fine now, you can put me down.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he lowered her gently to the ground nonetheless, though he hovered a bit as she took her own weight again. “What was that?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.” She tried to step away from him, only for her knees to buckle; he immediately caught her with an arm around her waist and the other supporting her head. She might have been distracted by the feeling of his fingers in her hair, if she hadn’t been so light-headed.

“That’s ‘fine’?” He leaned down, searching her face for something; for the moment, she gripped his jacket tightly and focused on breathing. “Belda, please. Talk to me.”

Feeling less wobbly, she shook her head slightly, relieved when it didn’t send her head spinning. “I am fine. There’s nothing either of us can do about it, so I have to be fine.”

His eyes widened fractionally, flicking over her cheeks. “You…”

Flushing, she pushed him lightly; she barely put any effort into it, but he released her reluctantly, still hovering a bit. “There’s nothing edible in the forest, is there? Beorn warned us to ration our food; I just should have listened earlier.”

Brow creased, Kíli shook his head. “No, we should have been divvying up the food more fairly.”

“Kíli…”

“No, we could have been on quarter-rations since we first came into the forest, and we still would have been fit to fight. Not healthy, exactly, but—”

“Then that’s the end of it.”

“No, it’s not!” Color rising in his cheeks, he moved closer and grabbed her wrist; his grip was gentle, and he lifted their hands enough that she couldn’t help but see that her wrist was barely the width of his first two fingers put together. His hand was nearly clenched even with her wrist and forearm in it.

Shock stole her voice; she’d known she was losing weight, but she hadn’t realized she’d lost so much. She’d been far from a healthy weight even before they entered the forest, but even so, it was chilling to realize.

His grip adjusted so that he was cradling her hand in his; his other hand rose to cup her cheek as he bent down to touch his forehead to hers. “This isn’t right, Belda.” Frustration creeping into his scent, he closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly. “There has to be a way to make it right.”

Swallowing thickly, she shut her eyes and leaned into him. “There isn’t.”

“Belda…”

The pain in his voice hurt to hear. Heart aching, she forced herself to draw back and look him in the eye. “Kíli, the only thing keeping me going right now is that the Company needs help. If I stop moving, I won’t be able to start again.” Pure horror flashed through his scent and over his face; quickly, she added, “For hours. For hours, I’ll be nothing but deadweight for you— I’ll be useless, and you can’t protect me and save the Company at the same time.”

Horror fading, his brows lowered into a conflicted frown. She went on before he could respond. “You’re right. This is serious. But unless you have a pantry in your pocket, there’s nothing we can do about it.” Breath shuddering in her chest, she lowered her voice. “Please. Let’s keep moving.”

After a long moment, he sighed. “I hate this.”

“I know.” She quirked a brow sardonically. “So do I.”

He let out a short, startled laugh. She couldn’t help but answer it, and as easily as that, she could breathe properly again.

Laugh fading into a fond smile, he tapped his forehead against hers; she pulled him back for a proper, lingering touch, and felt the tension drain from him as it did from her.

Finally, he pulled back again and she let him; frowning, he glanced around the trees. “…Which way did I come from?”

“Um…” After a moment’s poking around, she found his trail again. “Here, this way.”

He followed her a few paces back along his trail, then turned back and retraced his steps.

She paused, hearing him walk away again; she’d thought he meant to go back to the clearing, but his movements were purposeful, even if she didn’t know the purpose.

Looking around, he nodded slightly. “That’s right, I was… I was trying to find someone—anyone—and… I heard…” He stopped dead in his tracks, looking south-south-east. “I heard shouting from that way just before the spider came down.”

His last few words sent a chill down her spine—she couldn’t stop herself from glancing reflexively up—but she moved toward him nonetheless. “You’re sure? That way?”

“Completely.”

At the same moment, they each met the other’s eyes, nodded decisively, and began walking in the direction he’d indicated. After a few minutes—and two near-stumbles from her—he offered her his arm.

She took it gratefully, settling her right hand in the crook of his elbow and the other gripping his forearm; she could walk on her own, still, but when she stumbled or when her head swam, it was helpful to be able to hold onto him.

“Really, though, how are you so alert?”

He half-laughed, but he was blushing as he glanced at her. “I was worried about you.”

“What?”

He shrugged, expression clearly communicating ‘I have no idea how to explain this’. “I was half-asleep—I think I have been since we crossed the enchanted river—and then I heard Balin yelling. It took me a minute to realize that he was yelling your name, and therefore you were in trouble, but as soon as I did, it was like I’d been struck by lightning.” He shrugged again, blush darkening a shade. “All that mattered was getting to you.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say. It occurred to her to mention that that was almost exactly how it had felt when she found him unconscious, but she couldn’t quite find the words. Neither could he, apparently, as he didn’t say anything further.

After another minute or two, she noticed he was glancing at her more often, mouth quirked as though he were trying not to laugh. “What?”

A quick grin escaped before he schooled his expression again, and he shook his head. “Nothing.” Facing forward, he chuckled quietly and explained, “I was just thinking of Rivendell.”

It took her a moment to think back, but not because she’d let the memory gather dust. “When we wandered off together?”

“To get away from the others.”

Remembering that evening, she smiled fondly. “We found that little garden.”

“And you shoved me.” The mock-offense in his voice made her laugh; he grinned, but insisted, “No, I was completely sure for a second that I’d done something horrible by Hobbit customs, and then you wouldn’t look at me, even when you literally couldn’t get any closer!”

Her smile widened into a grin. “I was trying not to kiss you.”

Immediately, his head snapped toward her; at the same moment, his foot caught on something and he went flailing to the ground. She only just managed to avoid going down with him, and laughed as he sat up, eyes wide. “You what?”

Doing her best to rein in her laughter, she held her hand toward him. “That’s why I couldn’t look at you!” He took her hand, but thankfully, he didn’t put any weight into it as he stood; she hadn’t thought before offering. “You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to hold myself back.”

She must have moved closer while he was on the ground, as when he stood, he was close enough that his heat flooded over her; her breath caught as her chest brushed against him. She couldn’t stop her eyes from flicking to his lips, but she also couldn’t help but notice his eyes flicking down, as well. “No…” His voice was a barely a whisper, and so low that it sent a shiver through her. “No, I could believe it.”

For a long, charged moment, neither of them moved.

Then—whether because of Kíli’s resemblance to Thorin or that his family-scent was linked to Dwalin’s—the Company dimly occurred to her. Swallowing against the dryness in her throat, she forced herself to remind Kíli, “The Company. We should…”

“Yeah.” After a moment, he cleared his throat and took a tiny step back from her, offering his arm again.

She took it, and they continued on. After several minutes of casting about for something else to say, she remembered, “That was the night Thorin gave me the contract.”

Her eyes burned, and she swallowed back the lump in her throat. Kíli’s free hand covered hers, his voice low. “He didn’t mean it. What he said last night, I mean.”

On another day, she might have gotten angry with him, with the memory, but she was just tired. “Kíli, we’ve had this conversation.”

“No, we talked about what he said before I was on watch—”

“Exactly, and it wasn’t even that bad,” she added, “he happened to say something Longo said a few times and I took it the wrong way, that’s all.”

“—but we haven’t talked about what he said after I was on watch.”

Heartache pulsed dully behind her ribs. “There’s nothing to say.”

“He didn’t mean it, Belda.” A bitter scoff left her before she could stop it, and Kíli shook his head, voice hardening slightly. “No, you didn’t see his face after he turned around. He regretted saying what he did. Of course,” he scoffed, “he’s Thorin, so of course he wouldn’t take it back, but he did regret it.”

There was nothing in his scent or in his face to make her think that Kíli didn’t believe what he was saying, but even so, it went against everything she knew, every instinct she had.

Grip tightening slightly to counterbalance her, he stopped where he was and turned to face her. “Belda, look me in the eye and tell me I’m lying.” She could count the number of times she’d seen him so completely sober on one hand, and conviction rang in every syllable, every implied promise. “Thorin regretted wishing he hadn’t brought you, and he would have taken it back if he weren’t Durin-stubborn, and if I know Dwalin, he’s going to knock some sense into Thorin once we rescue them.”

The sheer absurdity of the last pushed her to let out a half-laugh. “And Thorin will listen?”

Kíli’s mouth quirked up as his expression lightened marginally. “Surprisingly, yes. Honestly, I th—”

On instinct more than anything else, she clapped a hand over his mouth, abruptly cold. “Did you hear that?”

His brows snapped together as his hand went to the hilt of his sword; stepping away from him, she scanned the trees around them. His sword rang quietly as he drew it. “Anything?”

It was barely a murmur, but she heard him all the same, and shook her head. “No, I don’t—”

A single, hissing word reached her. Blood going cold, she tilted her head back.

The armada of spiders above them didn’t give her time to draw her sword before they struck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *evil laughter* If I was *really* mean, I'd have spaced this so that it was on a Saturday. Oh well.  
> Also, I think I figured out a way to motivate myself to write a chapter a day. I just can't upload a chapter until I finish one! Let's see if that works, because I have a feeling it will not.  
> À demain!


	39. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twelve down, one to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fyi, there's a few paragraphs at the beginning that are hard T/soft M. If you're not interested in that, just scroll down to the dialogue after Kíli's section starts. You won't miss anything, plot-wise.

Belda threw herself backward, barely in time to avoid the spider aiming for her. It let out a grating screech as it advanced on her; she had to scramble backwards to avoid its legs, its speed leaving her no time for thought, let alone to gain any ground. _“Dragon-blooded vermin! I’ll hang your skin from a tree and wreathe my nest with your bones!”_

Instinctively, she threw herself forward, under its legs, and used its brief surprise to scrabble clear. There were a half-dozen other spiders swarming around, and they rushed her. She snarled, keeping her wings tightly folded as she rolled under one strike, leaping over another; they were moving almost before she did, anticipating her movements—

Just managing to trick two of them into crashing together, she drew her sword on the fly, a growl rumbling through her as they hissed, _“Weapons and vermin-skin, little mutant, you’re not a dragon, not a soft-skin, what_ _are_ _you?”_

They flinched back as she swung, but adapted swiftly. Now that she was partially on the attack, she had just enough room to realize: they weren’t animals, they couldn’t be, they were too intelligent, but that meant—

She bared her teeth at them, sheer, heady hate flooding through her. _“So the Light-Eater spread her spawn.”_

The Spiders let out a group screech at the name and redoubled their attacks.

There was no thinking, no more taunting, only darting in and away as openings came and went, sword flashing in her hand like an extension of her.

Her pulse pounded in her ears to the beat of the Spiders’ death-throes; her tail coiled and thrashed behind her; her claws dug into the dirt, helping her hold her ground when she retreated for an instant.

More Spiders came, none of them a match for a dragon, even one her size, and after two score laid dead among the trees, a good number fled. The remaining were child’s play without anyone to watch their backs, and she dispatched them efficiently, distantly aware of her Mate doing similarly nearby.

Her blood was running hot and fast, and when an unexpected touch came a moment after an unexpected sound, she reacted as she had been for long minutes.

On instinct.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

The spider shrieked, and Kíli yanked his sword back, breath coming in heaving pants as he watched the creature curl in on itself with its death-throes. His heart was still pounding, racing, and he felt like he had when Belda had been in danger— everything was more clear, more vivid, the smell of blood, the light in the clearing, the sound of another spider’s death as Belda dispatched it with quick, deadly efficiency.

She straightened up, eyes still on the dying spider, bearing as proud as when she’d been commanding the deer, and—his heart pounded, his lips tingled, his tongue—this time, there were no deer to scare off.

His sword fell to the ground, catching Belda’s attention, and she turned toward him just as he reached her and he just had time to see the feral gleam in her eyes before he captured her lips in his.

Their first kiss had been soft, their next had been shy, but there was nothing soft about the way she sunk her hands into his hair and pulled him closer or how his hands found her hips and pulled her closer still, and there was nothing shy about the way she fought for control of the kiss, both of them, back and forth, neither conceding, neither retreating, and both of them hungry, both of them devouring the other for the sheer, savage joy of being devoured.

His hands had begun roaming without conscious direction from him, one to the small of her back—closer, closer, still closer—the other up to her collarbone and her neck and—

Her movements faltered, a noise—low and needy, in the back of her throat—leaving her as his fingers brushed her earlobe, and he grinned, breaking the kiss as he pushed her hair aside and ran the tip of his tongue over the half-circle of barely-healed flesh.

She shuddered the same way she had the night before—from head to toe—and shoved him, hard.

He stumbled back, head fogged with yearning and spinning with hurt and panic and half-formed guilt, and tripped over the severed leg of a spider, falling onto his rear on the grass. There was just enough time for him to see that she was kiss-swollen and flushed before she dropped onto his lap, straddling him tightly as she scraped her lips and teeth over the underside of his jaw, and a growling moan shuddered through him on a wave of pure, primal pleasure.

A satisfied, purring growl left her, and then her mouth was on his again, and her hands were slipping under his tunic, over his skin. Losing himself in the kiss, he gripped her thighs and tried to pull her closer, only to realize that there was no space between them but what their clothing created. The realization brought a dark growl to his throat, to which she responded with a growl of her own, which only made the part of him that needed her closerclosercloser blaze higher.

But from her thighs to the hem of her trousers wasn’t far. It took him a few moments to work the hem of her shirt free, during which one of her hands returned to his hair and he could barely think between her hands and her mouth and she was _in his lap_ , but he could think enough to copy her, to trail one hand up over her back, over her shoulder blade, to her other ear, and she broke the kiss with a breathless gasp as he caressed the shape of it.

Mouth free, now, he applied it to her neck, running his lips over her jaw as she had to him, and her head fell back with a strangled moan, baring the full length of her neck to him. She was almost limp in his arms, apart from the iron grip her thighs and hands still had on him, and he chased his hand up under her shirt, following her spine, supporting her as he trailed his lips up to her ear.

It was almost too much—his heart pounding, his head reeling, she was _in his lap_ , she had her _hands in his hair_ , the feeling of her skin under one hand, her hair over the other, the smell of her skin and the feeling of her hair and the taste of her on his tongue—and then it was too much and he pulled back, panting. She caught his lips quickly, pulling a groan from him because he wanted this so badly it _hurt_ , but he ghosted his hands to her jaw and cupped her face and held her gently still and pulled back again, arching his back so that he could press his forehead to hers without their noses brushing.

He couldn’t gather the breath to speak, couldn’t find a single word, just watched her eyes—blown impossibly wide and dark and so, _so_ tempting—slowly clear as she came back to herself.

It wasn’t hard to notice when she did, as she flushed scarlet. “That— I’m sorry—”

He couldn’t help a scoffing half-laugh. “Pretty sure I should be apologizing to you; I started it.”

“I should have stopped—”

“Belda, it’s fine. You did stop, once you realized.” She shifted uneasily, which, given that she was still straddling him, was…

Well, both of them were scarlet and standing a few moments later. “Sorry—”

“It’s fine—”

“I shouldn’t’ve—”

“Not like it was bad—”

“But still—”

“Not—“

“—the time, no.”

He nodded guiltily. “The Company.”

She copied his motion, one hand twisting her bead around and around. “How about we never tell anyone we got distracted.”

“Sounds good to me.”

She met his eyes hesitantly, biting her lip against something it took him a moment to identify as laughter. Once he did, he couldn’t stop the laugh that came forth, and they laughed together for a handful of moments.

They were in a death-forest, hadn’t eaten in days, were surrounded by the carcasses of spiders made of nightmares and evil, and in a few minutes, they were going to fight even more of them, but for a few moments, they laughed.

It felt good to laugh.

The tension between them dissolved with that, and it was no harder to walk chastely beside her after the moment they shared than it had been before.

And clearly, it was no harder for her to read him than ever. “What is it?”

He glanced at her, brow furrowed. “No, just— Twice as many spiders went after you than me. And why were they coming after us at all?”

He didn’t actually expect an answer, so he was surprised when she responded easily, “Because we’re getting closer to their nest.”

“How do you know?” At that, she gave him a flat look and just pointed up.

Following her direction, he raised his eyes to the trees, and nearly tripped again to see huge swathes of cobwebs above them. Glancing back the way they’d come, he realized that the webs were getting thicker as they walked. Glancing down at Belda as she began to speak, he realized with a fond pang that she’d probably noticed them first by simple virtue of being so much shorter than him.

“And they, um…” She bit her lip, then bobbed her head to the side. “Well, I can understand them like I understood the deer, and they can understand me. I think I can goad them into chasing me to a one, so you can focus on the Company.”

The Company. Kíli hadn’t let himself think about what they might find, but now there was no avoiding it.

The spiders hadn’t exactly taken them for their health.

“Are…” Dry-mouthed, the word was barely audible. Swallowing hard, he forced himself to get the words out. “Are you sure the Company won’t be… They won’t…”

Swamped by images of Fíli, of Thorin, of Dwalin and Balin, Ori, Nori, and Dori, of all of them grey-faced and dull-eyed, Kíli startled when a cool hand ghosted over his cheek. Belda moved to stand in front of him—when had they stopped?—and lifted her other hand to him, as well. The gentle coolness of her touch pulled a sigh from him as his eyes closed, though after she’d closed the distance between them, he couldn’t resist the impulse to rest his hands on her hips.

“Spiders desiccate their prey.” The matter-of-fact pronouncement was unexpected enough to make him laugh, if weakly; she stroked her thumbs over his cheeks soothingly, a hint of matching laughter in her next few words. “That takes time, whether it’s a fly or a beetle, so it should take even longer with Dwarves.” Her hands stilled, but the iron in her voice was comforting. “They’re fine.”

But despite how much he wanted to believe her, he had to ask, “What if they aren’t?”

As he spoke, he opened his eyes to look at her, and almost wished he hadn’t. For a moment as his words hung in the air between them, she looked so heartrendingly vulnerable that he nearly took the question back. Too late, he remembered that Dwalin was really the only family she had; he at least had his Amad safe in Ered Luin. Everyone Belda had was in that nest of spiders.

But she shook off the fear and firmed her expression, meeting his eyes with absolute resolve. “Then we’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

 _‘Which it won’t’_ , he heard in the silence. In response to that as well as what she’d audibly said, he nodded, reluctantly drawing his hands back from her.

With a soft snort, she took hold of his arm and positioned herself at his side again, and positioned his hand so that it rested just barely under her bust.

His entire face felt as hot as a forge, but he understood the message: she didn’t mind it when he was a bit familiar with her. Actually, he would never have dared touch her like this on his own initiative, so maybe Hobbits and Dwarves had different rules about that.

In any case, he risked adjusting his hand slightly, moving to a more comfortable position, and though she shivered, she smiled up at him.

He smiled back, but after a moment, it fell away. He wasn’t sure which idea he hated more: going into a nest of giant spiders, or leaving his family there.

Either way, they began moving forward again. After a few steps, she slipped her arm around his waist, hooking her fingers into his belt. His blush flared even hotter, but it did make walking while they were so close together easier.

But with his hand where it was, it was impossible to ignore how her ribs jutted out under his palm. “Are you sure you’re all right to fight?”

“Again, you mean?” Her dry tone couldn’t lighten thoughts of her fainting with a dozen spiders on her tail; almost as if she knew what she was thinking, she sobered. “That’s why I’ll be leading them away while you get the Company free. I’ll go until I can’t anymore and then I’ll lead them back to you, and pray to Eru that you’re all ready by then.”

That wasn’t all that comforting, but this had never been an ideal situation. Steely determination filling him, he promised, “We will be.”

* * *

 

Belda

 

It was a few moments after Kíli’s vow that she heard them. Only at the edge of her hearing, not close enough to make out any words, but too close for comfort all the same.

Quickly, she pulled Kíli into a makeshift alcove formed by an especially misshapen tree, and met his eyes grimly. “We’re close. Wait here while I draw them off.”

Squeezing his hand lightly, she turned to go, but he called her quietly back before she’d taken five steps. “Wait— the rune stone.”

Brow furrowed, she moved closer to him so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice. “What about it?”

His brow was knotted together, but his eyes were searching her face as though he wanted to memorize her, just in case. “You remember what it means?”

 _Innikh dê_ , she remembered. Return to me. Softening, she moved closer still, until they were nearly touching, and took hold of his hand again. He huffed, half-smiling, no doubt thinking of what she’d done a few minutes earlier. She felt a blush rise in her cheeks, thinking of how brazen that had been, and this would be.

But even so, she tugged gently on his arm until he bent slightly, then pulled his hand to her thigh and pressed it against the rune stone in her pocket. His eyes widened fractionally, a blush rising in his cheeks, and she slipped her free hand around the back of his neck, making sure she was holding his eyes as she promised, “I’m coming back.”

Some of the fear left his scent at that, making the concern and the wanting that much easier to notice. For a moment, she hesitated.

And then she pulled him down far enough that standing on her toes closed the distance.

He groaned, low in his throat, as their lips met, and his hand tightened on her thigh for a moment. Keeping herself from reacting was the hardest thing she’d ever done, especially as his other hand pressed against the small of her back, pressed her against him, but she held on, barely. Breaking the kiss, she only leaned her forehead against his for a long moment, struggling to catch her breath despite not having done anything as strenuous as what they’d done before.

“I’m coming back,” she repeated, “so you’d better be alive when I do.”

With where they were, what they were about to do, that wasn’t half a joke. He murmured anyway, “I will if you will.”

Fond warmth blooming in her chest, she couldn’t hold back a slightly-hysterical half-laugh. Tipping her head back, she captured his lips again, this time completely focused on the feeling; she memorized the scratch of his beard on her skin, the way it felt to run her tongue over his chapped lips, the growl that rolled through him and into her and the answering purr she had to smother ruthlessly.

She knew better than to think there wasn’t a chance she might never kiss him again.

She memorized it all, and when she almost couldn’t stand to tear herself away, then, then she left.

The cold that rushed in everywhere he’d been only helped her wake up, and she didn’t so much pull the dragon forward as stop holding it back. There would be no battles.

But she needed that strength.

She wouldn’t last without it.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

Kíli bit back a protest as she pulled away, but by the time he pried his eyes open, she was gone. Keeping his eyes and ears open, he thought resolutely of the Company, of what he might have to do to free them, of what condition he might find them in.

He shied away from the worst possibilities, though.

It was a good thing they’d planned for him to wait a few minutes before he followed her out, as he was in no state to do any such thing for a minute or two after she left.

But eventually—carefully avoiding any thought of her or how she felt against him or the fact that he could still taste her—he crept out.

Even without the spiders filling the nest, it was eerie. The webs muffled sound strangely, so that creaking branches and such he’d thought were miles off turned out to be around the corner, and yet other sounds proved far further than he’d expected.

But it did work to his advantage occasionally. Such as when he rounded a tree to find himself face-to(-for-lack-of-a-better-word)-face with a spider, and managed, on instinct, to drive his sword into its face up to the hilt.

It didn’t even make a sound before it curled in on itself.

Heart pounding, he adjusted his grip on his sword and crept around the carcass, even more cautiously than before.

The next surprise was a minute or so later, when another spider dropped down from above. He reacted on instinct, but without surprise on his side, the beast swatted away his first strike easily. Spinning with the force of it, he spun under its next strike and close enough to drive his sword up through its head.

If there was any advantage to being ambushed by them earlier, it was that he’d learned their tactics.

But he still cursed himself for a anvil-headed fool after the spider was dead. He’d known that they used the trees, and still he hadn’t even thought to look up for the Company.

Belda would have.

But Belda was counting on him to find them. He could not fail her. It wasn’t worth thinking of.

So he would find them, and he would protect her when she came back.

That was all there was to it.

He huffed out a bitter laugh at his own optimism, but in a way, it helped.

There was only one option.

He’d make sure it was the one he took.

And Eru was with him, he was sure of it. Not one, not two, but four surprise encounters with the spiders, and not one of them had struck home?

No, that was providence. He’d find the Company. And they’d reach Erebor.

Another minute’s searching, and he did find them, though it took a moment for him to realize it. They were all bundled in webs, thickly enough that the only thing that set any of them apart from the others was their heights, and even those were indistinct.

It took longer for him to climb up high enough to reach them than it did to cut them down and lower them, though the few that hadn’t already been waking when he found them woke when they hit the ground.

A few of them hit hard enough to make him wince, but he knew they would be fine.

It made him all the more glad that Belda hadn’t been taken with them, though. She would have broken bones in the fall.

But the full Company wasn’t there. He counted again and again, searched again and again, but it only grew easier to see as the Company woke and pulled the cobwebs off of them: Thorin wasn’t there.

Thorin.

wasn’t.

there.

Heart plummeting, he rested against a trunk for a moment, scanning the webs again, desperately. But there was still nothing. Stomach twisting, he shut his eyes against a swell of nausea.

What was he supposed to do? What would Thorin do? What would Belda do?

Rage building in an instant, he slammed his fist against the tree, taking some satisfaction in the pain even as he knew that Belda would chide him for it. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have a temper.

But she did have a cooler head than him, overall. If she were here, she wouldn’t let her own turmoil affect the Company. She’d search until she was satisfied or until she ran out of time, and then she’d head down.

Thorin would either search until he dropped or give up after half as long as Belda, depending on who was missing.

Part of Kíli felt that he should keep going, but as the Company began calling his name and Thorin’s, he knew that he needed to go to them.

They needed to know what was happening, and there was no one else who could tell them.

Branch by branch, he climbed and swung and jumped down; just as he was coming within earshot, he heard Dwalin call Fíli’s name. She ignored him and kept yelling for Kíli. He was about to answer, but Dwalin moved directly in front of her and cut her off before Kíli could say a word. “Without Thorin here, you’re our leader.”

“And the first thing we need to do is find Thorin and Kíli!”

“The first thing we need to do is figure out what happened.” Balin looked around the Company, though never up, and so didn’t see Kíli. “Does anyone remember?”

A few started to answer, but Nori spoke over them. “That’s not as important as figuring out why we were hung like flies in a web! And more importantly, where the spiders that hung us are now.”

More than a few of the Company began speaking over each other, some agreeing with her, some disagreeing, and he saw Fíli give herself a hard shake. Squaring her shoulders, she shouted over them. “That’s enough! Nori’s right, if we don’t know what’s happening now, we might not get to figure out what happened then. Where are the spiders that wove these?”

“Chasing Belda.” Kíli jumped down the last few yards, which made for a rough landing, but he kept his balance and stood easily enough, striding to meet the Company. “She led them away, but she’ll be bringing them back soon enough, and there’ll be dozens of them, if not hundreds. We’ll need to be ready.”

“Kíli?” He wasn’t sure why Fíli was looking at him so strangely, but she shook it off in another moment. “How did you get free?”

“The spiders didn’t take me, or Belda.” Moving to brush the dust from his sleeves, he realized he was covered in brown, sticky spider blood. Ignoring that for the time being, he met Dwalin’s eyes over Fíli’s head. “She’s safe, or at least she was when I last saw her. I got knocked out last night, but the spiders hadn’t even touched her when she found me this morning.” He snorted, thinking of the fight, then fought a flush. “Even after we got swarmed, she didn’t have a scratch on her.”

Nori frowned. “Seems likely.”

He couldn’t hold back a wolfish grin. “You haven’t seen her fight.”

“All right, enough!” Fíli scowled at both of them, conflict in the expression that he didn’t understand. “How do you know she’s leading them back here?”

“Because that’s the plan. Can everyone fight?” A chorus of battle-hungry affirmatives sounded, and he grinned again. “Good. Be ready.”

Fíli was looking at him oddly again, but she only called for the Company to move out. Kíli fell in step just behind her, and Dwalin fell in step beside him. After a few moments, he felt eyes on him, and glanced over to see they were Dwalin’s. “What?”

Dwalin huffed lightly, a half-smile just perceptible through his beard. “You wouldn’t make a half-bad Hersir.” Kíli stumbled on nothing; Dwalin caught his elbow, looking amused. “With a few decades of training, mind.”

“Wh— I— Y— You—”

“I’m getting old. Fíli’ll need someone closer to her age, in the long run.”

Fíli glanced back at them, mouth quirked ruefully. “I definitely sympathize, Kee, but he’s right. The way you were talking and acting back there? You looked like Thorin. I’ve seen you covered in honey and grass and running away from a swarm of bees, screaming—”

“You promised never to speak of that again!”

“—and I was ready to follow you into battle just now.” Kíli’s protests died in his throat. “Besides, you’re better at strategy than I am, at least short-term.”

Realizing his mouth was hanging open, Kíli shut it with a _snap_. Dwalin grunted at Fíli’s last few words. “Speaking of strategy, you said you’ve fought these things, pup? Any advice?”

Kíli gaped at him for a moment, then realized he was gaping and forced himself to look ahead again. His mind was still reeling, whirling from images of him standing next to Fíli in court to images of him leading her troops into battle to images of him hammering out strategy with her, and not all of them were of him failing miserably. Being her Hersir, her foremost General, wasn’t something he’d have ever thought himself capable of, but now… now he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

But Dwalin had asked a question. Shaking his head clear, he raised his voice a fraction, glancing back at the Company to make sure they were all listening. “The spiders’ backs are armored. Aim for the face or for the underbelly. Or the legs, but you have to cut off most of them before it starts to make a difference. There’s no way to know whether they’ll be looking at you as prey or just enemies; if it’s the latter, they’ll be using their pincers, mostly, which will give you plenty of opportunity to stab them in the face. If the former…” He shook his head, shrugging. “I’m not sure. They might try to knock you out again, in which case you’ll need to go for the underbelly. Just keep in mind that they could be coming from literally any side, including up, and they’re faster than you think.”

On ‘up’, he glanced at the webs above them, and wasn’t entirely surprised to see a few spiders just coming into view. Cracking his neck, he drew his sword, getting Dwalin and Fíli’s attention, at least.

“Speaking of,” he gestured at the spiders just as they noticed the Company, “get ready for a fight.”

Dwalin huffed, drawing Grasper and Keeper. “You’re the one with experience, pup. Lead the way.”

Kíli glanced sharply at him, but there was no mockery in his face. Looking at the spiders again, Kíli let himself smirk, and ran forward.

He’d found the Company.

Now it was time to protect Belda.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda tried to quiet her breathing, but when she felt as though she could barely breathe at all, there wasn’t much she could do.

But the Spiders ran past, shrieking about the ‘food’ running free. A moment later, the sound of battle came, complete with the Dwarven shouts she’d been growing used to for months.

The Company was awake and fighting, and her father was with them.

There was no mistaking that voice.

Smiling weakly, she let her eyes close and her head tip back against the back of the tree-hollow. Distantly, she thought that a few weeks earlier, she’d have been frantic to help them fight.

But she was tired. She hadn’t stopped running since she left Kíli, although fortunately, she hadn’t needed to shout insults at them after the first few, and so she’d saved her breath. But she’d barely been able to see for the grey-blackness ringing her vision when she found the hollow, and she’d been resting for nearly five minutes now and she still couldn’t see properly, and she still hadn’t caught her breath.

They could take care of themselves. She didn’t actually want to die, despite occasional appearances.

But she didn’t let herself sleep, either. She needed to go and find them as soon as the Spiders were dealt with, or they’d never find her.

And she wasn’t actually sure she’d wake up.

Belatedly, she realized she hadn’t heard any shouting for a minute. Scrubbing a hand over her eyes, she found the edge of the hollow blindly, shifting her weight to crawl out again.

But just as she was about to, she heard a shout not in any language of Dwarves or animals. _“Take them!”_

Elves.

Blood running cold, she crept to the edge of the hollow, looking carefully out. No one was in view, but that had been half of why she’d hidden there, because it was facing away from where the Company was. She crawled out silently, edging around the trunk until she could see the Company.

A small army of Elves surrounded them, all with more than enough weapons to guard themselves and the Company alike.

If she was honest, she didn’t actually mind the Company being taken into custody. There’d be food, at least, and they wouldn’t be attacked.

But she did mind the Company being treated like vermin, and by the way some of the Elves were glaring at them, that was exactly how they saw them.

What could she do? She couldn’t think. Her head was pounding, vision still tinged grey despite the rest she’d taken, and she couldn’t think. Freeing the Company couldn’t work, and would be a horrible plan anyway. Surrendering would be bad, too… Why? She couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter.

All she could do was follow until her head cleared. They hadn’t found her yet because she didn’t want to be found—the leader, a blond, had looked straight at her half a dozen times already and not seen her—because no one and nothing could find a Hobbit who didn’t want to be found, but that only worked when she was staying still. Once she was moving, she’d have to be as stealthy as she possibly could, and she’d have to stay a bit back to make doubly sure.

It would work. She could track them perfectly by sound and scent.

It would work.

The Elves prodded the Company into motion, and she waited for them all to leave. The blond lingered longer than the others, along with a redhead—a woman, she thought, but night was falling sooner than she’d expected and details were hard to make out—but they did leave, eventually.

Quickly, Belda stood to follow—

It wasn’t night falling.

She never felt herself hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just curious, is this a cliffhanger? I was going for cliffhanger, but I honestly can't tell.  
> Also, I am complete Kíli trash and if any of you thought differently, sorry, but that's what you're stuck with. And honestly, I get so annoyed when I read fics where he's written as just a goofy idiot. Yes, he's a bit of a goof in the movies, but we also see him holding his own with warriors twice his age (at least) and let's not ignore the fact that he's an archer. A, archery is freaking hard, and B, given the setting, there's a better than fair chance that he's also a hunter, and that means that not only would he have the capacity for patience (seriously, I've read so many fics where he's basically a toddler on a sugar high), he would also have at least a basic grasp of strategy. Not to mention, he is literally a prince. He and Fíli would have both been taught at least basic diplomacy, etiquette, the law, and they probably would have both matured fairly early, since at some point in their childhood, they would have realized that Thorin's burden is at least a little bit theirs, too, as his heirs. Seriously, the most foolhardy things he does in the movies is send Bilbo after the Trolls (and go in after him, but come on, he was trying to save Bilbo's life, and probably did!) and go after the lever on the way out of Mirkwood, and the latter was one hundred percent necessary! He was one of about four people who possibly could have done it, and he freaking succeeded! AAARGH!!!  
> Okay, rant over, sorry about that. Anyway, this is one of the chapters that I really wish could be put on film, cause in the movie in my head, the camera's on Fíli and the Company when she asks where the Spiders are, and then you hear Kíli and the camera cuts to the tree right as he does a total action-hero entrance, hero strut, all that. Seriously, it would look so awesome. (That's why everyone was looking at him a little weird, btw.) Also, while it does bug me that people tend to write Kíli as having the attention span of a gnat, I do think that he probably is the kind of person who needs to stay busy. Being Fíli's Hersir (which is an archaic viking position; basically, he would be in charge of their entire military, their training, etc., and he would be the main strategizer for Erebor. He still has a lot of training to go before he could actually do it, but hey, Fíli has a lot of training to go before she could be Queen, so...) would be ideal, since there would always be something to keep him busy, and then Belda would keep his life interesting outside work, too.  
> Anyway, à demain!


	40. Legolas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude

A soft _thud_ sounded from behind them, in the Spiders’ nest. On any other day, he might have ignored it and kept moving, but after finding an entire host of Dwarves in that self-same nest, he knew he couldn’t ignore it. If he did, the question of what it had been wouldn’t leave him alone for months.

That was always so irritating.

Quietly, he addressed Tauriel. “Keep them moving. Lethuin, with me.”

Both Silvan guards nodded, and the other man fell in step with Legolas, both of them drawing their weapons as they moved cautiously back toward the now-empty nest.

A disgusted chill ran down his spine as he looked over it again. Tauriel was right, the Spiders were growing bolder.

Legolas didn’t even remember a time before they infested the Wood, but he did remember being able to travel to the Narrows without any real caution. Now he couldn’t venture to the Mountains without taking an armed guard with him.

He could never—would never—understand how his father and the other Elves old enough to remember the Wood as it should be—such as Lethuin—could just ignore the state of it. Some days, it seemed as though he and Tauriel were the only ones to care, and he couldn’t even speak properly with her about it, for fear of being accused of lacking faith in his father’s rule.

But he was beginning to think that he would have to speak up, whether privately or publicly.

This was growing intolerable.

There was no movement in the nest, friend or foe. Narrowing his eyes, Legolas listened carefully for anything at all.

He heard Lethuin’s breathing, his heart.

He heard the cacophony of a troop of Dwarves’ hearts and breathing.

He heard the far, far quieter sounds of the Elves guarding the Dwarves.

He heard a weak, slow heartbeat, paired with thin, shallow breathing.

The last was coming from the same direction as the impact he’d heard, and alarm jolted through him as he heard no improvement for several seconds; even if the bearer was an Elf, the sounds were far too weak.

Abandoning any pretense of stealth, he rushed toward the unknown being, ignoring Lethuin’s muttered curses as he followed.

Behind a slight hill and beside a large tree, there was a crumpled form, too tiny to be any sort of adult, and Legolas felt his heart nearly stop.

Turning the form gently over, he realized that it was a girl-child, with furred feet and oddly-pointed ears that proved her not to be any sort of Man, Elf, or even Dwarf, and with hollow cheeks and too-visible bones that made it clear that her race didn’t matter in the slightest.

He’d never seen someone so skeletal before.

Sheathing his weapons swiftly, he snapped at Lethuin, “Get to the palace and tell them to prepare for an emergency patient, starvation and…” He examined her quickly, frowning at the lack of any wounds deeper than scratches, despite the blood that covered her. Still, the shadows under her eyes spoke for themselves. “And exhaustion. Go!”

Lethuin sprinted away without so much as an acknowledgement. Legolas didn’t worry; half the reason he’d chosen Lethuin rather than any of the other guards was how reliable he was in a crisis.

But as Legolas lifted her, nearly weightless, a sick worry lodged in his gut anyway. Her insubstantiality aside, she didn’t respond to his touch in the slightest. Not a flinch, not a twitch, not even a change in her breathing.

She needed help now.

* * *

 

Ori

 

When the two Elves went back, Ori quashed the flicker of worry. If Belda was back there, she’d handle herself.

When the redheaded Elf raced out like Durin’s Bane was on his heels, Ori reminded himself that she was a dragon, she’d been fighting spiders not twenty minutes earlier, and hadn’t even bothered to lift a finger for them anyway. He didn’t need to worry about her.

But when the blond returned, an unconscious, insensible Belda in his arms, looking ludicrously tiny compared to him, Ori had to struggle to keep his concern off his face.

Trying to smother it would be useless.

He’d thought she was staying back because she didn’t want to help them, or because she had some plan, not because she was actually hurt.

The blond ignored the uproar Belda’s appearance caused—especially from her family and Kíli, of course—to say something to the redhead he’d put in charge too quietly for Ori to hear under Dwalin’s frantic shouts for his daughter. Even the Elves looked affected by Belda’s state, and the blond raced ahead of them a moment later.

Ori thought they’d gag and bind Dwalin to get him to cooperate, but instead the redhead in charge spoke sharply over him. “You care for the girl? Then stop struggling. The faster we get to the palace, the faster you can see her.”

Even as he considered her words, Dwalin still looked as though he’d keep fighting. To Ori’s surprise, Nori whispered something in Dwalin’s ear, and even more surprisingly, he listened, staring at her as though she had the answers to everything for a long moment before subsiding completely.

Kíli was vibrating as though he physically couldn’t hold himself still, but the redhead admonished an Elf who tried to berate Kíli like they had Dwalin. Ori’s Sindarin wasn’t nearly good enough to understand everything she said, but he thought he heard the word for ‘mercy’ at the end.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

_“Enough! He’s worried for the girl, that’s all. They all are. They’ll cooperate if we show them mercy.”_

Fíli thought a few of the Elves looked as though they’d argue with the leader, but they subsided and just prompted the Company to walk.

She’d been careful not to let on that she could understand them as they talked, but the blond’s words to the leader refused to be forgotten.

_“She won’t last the journey if I travel with you.”_

‘She’ was Belda, obviously, but…

She was that sick? Or weak? Fíli hadn’t been able to tell just looking at her, but she knew that she’d been fine the night before. So whatever had happened, it must have happened quickly, especially if she’d been helping Kíli fight the spiders just a handful of hours prior.

She’d probably caught some strange disease from the spiders; Hobbits were so much more fragile than Dwarves, it would make sense that she’d be susceptible when they weren’t.

So there was no chance that any of the Company could be harmed by whatever had befallen her. Fíli told herself she felt relieved at that, that the worry in her gut was abating.

Glancing at Ori, at the complete lack of sympathy in his face, and remembering how completely he’d turned against Belda, reminding herself that Belda must have done something truly reprehensible to lose his trust so quickly, the knot of worry did begin to loosen.

It wasn’t as though Belda was a Dwarf, after all. And she truly did seem inhuman, at times. Almost bestial.

So it didn’t matter.

Except Kíli would mourn her. At that thought, Fíli glanced at the back of her brother’s head; she was at the rear of the line, nearest the Elven leader, while Kíli, Dwalin, and Nori were all closer to the head.

Kíli cared for Belda, truly cared for her. Fíli was beginning to have gnawing, niggling doubts about Belda’s regard for Kíli, but she knew her brother.

Although she’d never seen him like that, when he’d jumped down. He’d looked like one of the great heroes they’d played at being as children, dropping in out of nowhere, bearing tall and proud once he straightened. He’d never looked so much like Thorin. Even so, with how dark his eyes were, the blood covering him, he’d almost looked more deadly than Thorin might have. Like death personified.

But even so, she knew her brother, and she’d seen how he’d looked when the blond Elf rushed away with Belda.

Like he’d only just kept from racing after her himself, despite everything between them.

He cared for her.

But Fíli knew him. She could make him see sense.

All she needed was time, before he made a mistake he’d regret for the rest of his life.

Because Fíli had only grown more sure over the weeks they’d been in Mirkwood, he would regret Belda, all of them would. She wasn’t a Dwarf, and Fíli hadn’t forgotten the oh-so-convenient timing of Belda falling unconscious at just the same time that Kíli woke up, and wasn’t it such a coincidence that Thorin hurled abuse at Belda last night, and now he was the only member of the Company missing?

She’d make Kíli see sense. With Ori’s help, it wouldn’t take long.

Of course, they might not have much time to talk. Prisoners were generally discouraged from having private conversations.

* * *

 

Nori

 

Guts in knots, Nori carefully stayed beside Dwalin as they walked.

As much as she told herself it was because she found his presence comforting, though, part of her knew it was because she wanted to help him, any way she could. He’d been so frantic to get to Belda—she’d never, never seen him like that before—but when he’d met her eyes, he’d calmed down somewhat. She had no idea why, she’d only reworded what the Elleth in charge had said, but if it helped him for her to stay with him, she would.

But the way he’d looked refused to leave her.

She’d never expected that he could be so tender, either, but she’d seen him with Belda, seen his gentleness. She’d seen him desperate, just now and when Belda was unconscious, and she’d never expected that, either.

The way he’d looked when he met her eyes…

What was she missing?

Almost as though he’d heard her thinking about him, he glanced over, something she didn’t recognize in his eyes, and knocked his hand gently against hers in a silent question.

She almost shook off the question, but with that question still on her mind—what was she missing?—she looked piercingly at him, trying to decipher that something. It wasn’t something he’d ever looked at her with before—

No, that wasn’t true, he’d looked at her like that after Belda woke up, that same question in his eyes, and it wasn’t so different from when he’d been arguing with her about climbing the tree, when he’d been scared on her beha—

He was concerned about her—worried—he cared about her! Not that she thought he was heartless or that it was impossible for him to be concerned about the criminals he caught, but this wasn’t just concern, the look in his eyes—growing stronger as she didn’t respond to his question—

He cared about her. If he’d been looking at someone else—one of his family—she wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest, because it wasn’t just care, it was—

She couldn’t muster the courage, even in her own mind, to put a proper name to it.

But she recognized it all the same.

And then she recognized him.

He was her One.

She couldn’t stop the realization from showing in her expression, as sudden as it was, and his concern only grew.

She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, not in earshot of the entire Company and her brothers, and certainly not in earshot of Elves.

So instead, she looked stoically ahead, and she slipped her hand into his—his stride faltered, but he didn’t react otherwise—and pointedly extended her index finger. When he glanced down at their hands, then at her, brow furrowed.

She’d have rolled her eyes at him if she didn’t feel as though her heart was about to hammer out of her chest. Instead, she looked pointedly at him, swung her elbow against his, and lowered her index finger for an instant before raising it again.

He looked at their hands again, brow still furrowed. It wasn’t hard to notice when he put it together; his brows shot up, wide eyes snapping to hers for the instant before he remembered they were in enemy territory.

For long, anxious seconds, he didn’t give any other response, just stared ahead at the road, much as she was pretending to do.

Then she looked down at the feeling of his skin moving on hers, and saw him raise his index finger just as she had, and tap it gently against hers.

…Oh.

Oh. That explained…

She was going to be very annoyed if the only reason he’d started being kinder to her was because he realized she was his One.

But she still had to hold back a giddy grin.

This was going to be complicated, and messy, and possibly impossible, but all the same…

She was glad it was him.

* * *

 

Bofur

 

Behind them, Bofur saw them take each others’ hands, and he saw the shifts in their stances.

He saw Nori stiffen, and Dwalin tense.

He saw Dwalin jolt, and Nori relax.

He saw them both drift closer over the minutes, even after the increased pace kept them from holding hands any longer.

If the Elves hadn’t been there, he’d have been hard-pressed to keep from laughing, but as it was, he was able to keep control of his expression. It had been surprising enough to find that one of his oldest friends was a woman, but this came close to topping it.

Still, he’d seen them grow closer before Nori lost her memory. And Nori was so good with Belda, it wasn’t so surprising that Dwalin would think more of her for it. And Dwalin wasn’t a hard man by any means, just a stern one.

And he knew how much family meant to her. Belda was a bit like a tiny, feral Nori anyway, so it only made sense that Nori would take her under her wing, and if Dwalin could accept Belda as she was, it only made sense that he could accept Nori, as well.

And he knew how much Nori wanted a steadier life. She never said it, really, but he knew her that well, at least. He knew she’d have settled down decades earlier if she could have.

The fact that she was a woman did make that a bit complicated, since she’d have had her pick of suitors if she’d let it be known, but then again, she might have felt as though she were obligated to marry rich if she did marry, since she’d have to find another line of work if she married. On her own, she had the freedom to work as she liked, and without needing to consider any counsel but her own. Marriage would complicate things. He’d seen that with Bombur.

Granted, Bombur tended to be a bit indecisive about things other than cooking, so finding his One had been a blessing as far as that went. Minád was many things, but weak-willed was not one of them.

But neither Dwalin nor Nori were the type to consult the other over every little thing. He didn’t doubt that. What he wasn’t sure about was whether either of them were the type to get annoyed over not being consulted.

So far, things had been good between them, but adding in a relationship could muck everything up if they weren’t careful.

He didn’t want to see that happen to her. To either of them, really, but especially to her. She was one of the few friends he had who he could talk to the same whether it had been a week or a decade since they last saw each other.

He hoped this worked out.

* * *

 

Tauriel

 

Tauriel noted the two Dwarves’ silent conversation, but saw nothing that could be any sort of plotting to escape, and dismissed it quickly. But as they walked on and on, she found herself more and more preoccupied with the girl Legolas had found.

Tauriel had only seen beings as small when she rode out with the Guard or with the army, near towns of Men. She could count the number of times that had occurred on one hand, and none since her promotion to Captain of the Guard.

None since Erebor’s fall.

She’d never seen anyone as ill at all.

Of course, she was only six hundred. There was no one younger than her in all the Woodland Realm, and most of the Elves under her command were over three millennia older. But still, Legolas was over a millennium older, and he’d looked just as horrified at the girl’s state as Tauriel had felt. It must truly be serious.

Stomach twisting, she sent a silent prayer to Eru. _Let Legolas reach the palace in time. Let her live._

* * *

 

Glóin

 

Glóin made sure to stomp his feet with all the force he could muster. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to send dirt onto the boots of the Elves walking at the head of the line.

Poncy, prissy weed-eaters, insulting his wife and son.

Well, not ‘son’, but he wasn’t about to inform them of that.

Besides, if these Mebelkhagâs were too stupid to tell the difference between a lad and a lass, he’d be doing them a disservice to correct them. It would only confuse their tiny little minds.

* * *

 

Thranduil

 

Oakenshield was as unpleasant as his grandfather. Even the way he struggled as the guards removed him from Thranduil’s sight was objectionable.

If he’d been alone in his chambers, Thranduil might have rubbed his brow; as it was, he only closed his eyes for a moment.

May Eru put a curse on the stubbornness of Dwarves.

It was obvious that Oakenshield had compatriots; they’d interrupted two feasts before Oakenshield did. If there hadn’t been two of them at the second feast, the one who’d fallen under the enchantment would have been removed to the palace just as Oakenshield had been, in the end, but perhaps this was for the best. Whoever the first to be stricken had been, it was almost certain that Oakenshield had more authority, and was therefore a better source of information.

But Oakenshield refused to say anything but that they, and he, were starving. Apart from insults.

A century of isolation would break him. Even Elves found the time alone too much to bear.

A slight commotion pulled Thranduil out of his thoughts; Legolas was walking toward the throne just ahead of Losnyrn, both of them grim. “Legolas. The Dwarves were nearer than expected, then.”

Legolas’ mouth tightened. Losnyrn’s turned marginally down as they came to a stop, side by side. “The patrol has yet to return, Father. Legolas, however, saw fit to return with one of the prisoners ahead of the others.”

Thranduil kept his breath and his heart carefully even, hiding the unease he felt at the news. “Explain.”

Legolas inclined his head slightly, expression striving for neutrality; Thranduil could still see his irritation with his brother. “One of their number is a child, father, and one in critical condition. She would need to be carried in any case, and keeping pace with the patrol could have delayed her treatment past all recovery.”

And Thranduil had thought his opinion of Dwarves couldn’t drop any lower. “What is the child’s state?”

Losnyrn let slip a minuscule sigh. “Dire. Legolas’ decision to run ahead of the others was hasty, but understandable.”

A faint flush tinted Legolas’ cheeks at the admonishment, but he added evenly, “The healers believe she should recover quickly with proper care.”

Thranduil considered the matter for a moment. “Then your actions must be rewarded.” Losnryn’s eyes widened, lips pulling down; Legolas brightened minutely. “You may oversee the Dwarves’ internment.”

Both his sons clearly understood the punishment implicit in the ‘reward’; Losnryn restrained a smile while Legolas deflated back to his previous stoicism.

“Losnryn, inform the guards that Oakenshield is to know nothing of his fellows’ capture.” He bowed and left. Once he was gone, Thranduil descended from his throne to address Legolas more directly. “You showed compassion, helping the girl.”

After a moment, Legolas inclined his head.

“Compassion can be used against you as surely as a blade.” Turning his eyes toward the gates, Thranduil hardened his voice. “Take care not to let it be known as a weakness.”

Legolas merely inclined his head further. Thranduil dismissed him with a flick of his fingers and returned to his throne.

Without Oakenshield, they would undoubtably choose another to represent them.

Preferably one less stubborn.

* * *

 

Hithlum

 

Legolas stood quietly just inside the door for several seconds before Hithlum could leave her patient and speak with him, but as always, he showed no sign of irritation at the wait.

She smiled softly as she approached him. “Thank you for your consideration, but she’s in no state to mind a stranger seeing her.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up, but he didn’t move his eyes from the doorframe. “All the more reason to respect her boundaries. How is she?”

Hithlum sighed, looking over at the girl. “The same. I’ve yet to figure out the best treatment for her.”

“I thought it was only a matter of ensuring she’s fed until she wakes.”

“It is, but I’ve treated Dwarves before.” His eyes widened a fraction; she let a tiny smirk slip. “This was before they roused ‘Durin’s Bane’ and abandoned their cities in the Misty Mountains. But their appetites were hardly more than a Man’s. Thus far, she seems insatiable.” She allowed herself a slight grimace, looking at the girl’s emaciated form. “It’s making it difficult to sustain her.”

Legolas nodded, brow furrowed, though she doubted he had any real understanding of the matter. “Are you sure she’s a Dwarf?”

“What else could she be? Besides, I’ve never seen a female Dwarf.”

“Never once?”

“No, no one has. They don’t leave their settlements, I understand.”

He grimaced slightly. “How can they endure it? Being shut up underground for no reason other than that they aren’t male.”

Sighing, she chided him gently, “They’re Dwarves. There’s no understanding them. But by the look of her, she, at least, is free to be outdoors as she wishes.”

Nodding, he took a deep breath before straightening to his full height. “I’ve been placed in charge of the Dwarves; there are still arrangements to make before the patrol arrives.”

She inclined her head. “Of course, your Highness.”

He moved away without any further fanfare, and Hithlum let herself watch for a few moments. She remembered when he’d been as small as the girl behind her, a blur of irrepressible energy, always running circles around his mother and brother, always finding something new to laugh at.

Then Queen Aerlinn fell at Gundabad before the young prince had even reached his second century. Crown Prince Losnyrn had always been more akin to their father than mother, and the two of them had withdrawn further into themselves with her loss. Legolas had lost two playmates at once.

But she was glad of his lightening in recent centuries. Hithlum was sure it had a fair deal to do with Guard-Captain Tauriel, the poor dear, but whatever the cause, it was good to see that the imp hadn’t been completely buried under the prince Legolas had grown into.

Sighing, she turned back to her patient. Cuisul would sustain her until she woke, assuming Hithlum could adjust the ratios of water and Lembas correctly, but that was proving more difficult than Hithlum had expected. Dwarves needed less than half the Lembas that Elves did, but she’d already lowered the water content to an Elven level and the girl still wasn’t recovering like she ought to be.

It was almost like…

But then, she’d never treated a female Dwarf before, or a child. It could very well be thatthey were significantly different from adult men.

Even so, it was anyone’s guess when she would wake. Hithlum only hoped it was soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're enjoying the Elves so far, because the next six or seven chapters are all going to be in the Halls. (Btw, why is it so freaking hard to find a way to refer to the Elven palace itself? 'Mirkwood' refers to the forest as a whole, 'the dungeons' only refers to, well, the dungeons, and it's just about the only place in Middle-Earth that doesn't have a very specific name! I had to settle on 'the Halls' since they're referred to as 'the Halls of the Woodland Realm' in the book, but that's still too vague for me. But it's all I have to work with, so... *shrugs*)  
> Notes: 1) I think I'm mostly using PoVs other than the core characters as a stalling mechanism, mostly, but it does give a bit of space for exposition that would be hard to work in otherwise. Speaking of, 2) apparently, one characteristic of Semitic languages is that they have a two or three consonant base for words, and then the exact form of the word is determined by the vowel pattern used, so you can just glance at a sentence and get the gist of it even before you work out the specifics. Neo-Khuzdûl uses the same mechanism, and I've been looking at those lately, and my point is, 'Minád' is made up by me, and uses the base [MND], meaning 'character/will power'. Hence the line about her being the opposite of weak-willed.  
> (Also, apparently, the base [ThRN] means 'dare/risk/venture'. How perfect is that for Thorin?!)  
> (Also-also, there are a couple jokes in there, like how the base for 'absurdism' is [LSD].)  
> 3) Yes, this 'verse's Gimli is a girl. Have I said that before? I can't remember. Although, honestly, I've kind of fallen in love with the idea of fem!Gimli, so basically, unless I specify that Gimli's a boy (like in Kintsukuroi; that Gimli is definitely a guy), just assume that Gloin's lying to protect her. 4) Yes, I made Legolas a youngest child. In the LoTR books, he's described as being a lot more of a turkey than he's portrayed in the movies, and as a youngest child, let me tell you, annoying people is half the job. Plus, he just doesn't act like the heir of a kingdom, to me. So, OC older brother. His name means 'snowy trees', btw. It took me way too long to put those elements together. 'Hithlum' means 'misty shade', btw. 5) One of the (many, many) things that drives me nuts about the Hobbit movies is that you see female Dwarves out and about in Dale before Erebor fell. DWARROWDAMS DON'T LET ON THEY'RE FEMALE! THEY DEFINITELY DON'T ADVERTISE IT LIKE THAT, IF THEY DID, GIMLI WOULDN'T HAVE HIS LINES ABOUT PEOPLE THINKING 'THERE ARE NO DWARVEN WOMEN'! *clears throat* Sorry about that, but still. Anyway, since anyone with half a brain would know that there have to be Dwarven women somewhere, the natural conclusion (to my mind) is that Dwarven women are hidden away in their settlements. To a society as egalitarian as Elves, that would sound barbaric. Also, Elves are terrible liars. This makes them gullible. More on this later. 6) 'Cuisul' is my invention, I'm pretty sure I got the idea from a fic on here, somewhere, but I have no idea where it was; it was like a year ago. I figured, if Lembas can keep people going and 'one small bite fills the stomach of a grown man', then it would be a decent liquid diet for coma patients. Not that there are many of those in Middle-Earth, but still. And if a Hobbit *coughPippincough* can eat four loaves in one go, even if he's stuffed afterwards, that means Hobbits need a LOT more food than the rest of Middle-Earth. Funny in peacetime, angst-fodder any other time.  
> À Lundi!


	41. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let the long con begin.

The first thing Belda was aware of was the sensation of being spoon-fed some sort of soup. It was delicious, but still, she’d have crawled under the covers and stayed there until she wasn’t so mortified if she’d been the slightest bit stronger.

That was the second thing she grew aware of. She wasn’t strong enough to open her eyes, let alone to resist the hands tending to her. From the feeling, she was under blankets from the collarbone down, with her arms lying on top of the sheets. Her arms were mostly covered, though; her skin began to itch as she thought about it, and she guessed she was still wearing the clothes she’d been in since they left Rivendell. They’d been washed at Beorn’s, at least, but still, that was…

Thirdly, she realized she had no idea how long she’d been sleeping. Or unconscious. She hadn’t dreamt, so it was probably the latter. As a cloth dabbed gently around her mouth—she would have shuddered with the force of her humiliation if she could have—she felt cautiously for the instincts that—she only now realized—had been leading her by the nose for several days, if not a good week or so.

They were still there, still too strong for her to have slept past her First Shift, but significantly diminished. She puzzled over that for a few minutes as whoever was feeding her finished and walked quietly away. It was only after a minute or two of silence that she realized it was for the same reason she’d been so solidly a Hobbit after escaping from the Goblins. It had been pain keeping her mind and soul alike in her Hobbit form then, it was frailty now, but it had the same result.

The fourth realization was that the departing footfalls hadn’t belonged to any Dwarves, Men, or Hobbits.

That only left one possibility.

Part of her—still solidly Hobbit, if a bit Dwarven—wanted to snarl at the thought, but that faded quickly. If she was a prisoner, she was being treated kindly, and since she was obviously a patient, there was a chance she wasn’t a prisoner after all. And if she wasn’t a prisoner, she could work to free the Company from the outside.

The last thing she remembered was seeing them led away by Mirkwood’s forces. Whatever the Company thought of Elves, she was sure that they would feed the Company, at the very least. Prisons kept people out as much as they kept prisoners in, so the Company would be safe until they escaped.

Or were released.

Could she? It would depend. She didn’t know anything about the politics in Mirkwood, or really even about Elves in general. She didn’t know whether she was being considered an innocent or an accomplice, or if she would be a prisoner now that she’d woken.

Everything could be over before she had a chance to begin it.

But she might be able to keep the Quest on track.

She’d have to wait and see, and to improvise as she went. And the first step was figuring out how they saw her.

With difficulty, she pried her eyes open. Above her was a high, pale-wood ceiling, with intricate carvings of leaves and branches that made it almost look like she was outdoors, under the trees. Tipping her head to the right, she saw open windows of the same sort that were strewn about Rivendell, and late-afternoon light streaming through them. Dragging her head upright again, she let it tip to the left, and saw a small table beside the bed, and a chair between them. There were no other patient beds in the room, though it was large, but that was hardly surprising; from what she’d heard of Elves, it was rare for even a single Elf to be wounded or ill enough to need treatment.

The footsteps from before returned at the edge of her hearing, and grew steadily closer.

A jolt of panic struck Belda. The first few moments could be crucial, and if she acted too much akin to one persona or another, the other would be impossible to use believably.

What would be most believable? Confusion. Maybe a bit of fear. She wasn’t sure yet that she’d even be able to speak, so she’d have to work with that weakness, but it might help; anything odd in how she acted could be dismissed as merely disorientation at the strange wakening.

Confusion, then, and some distress. She arranged her features accordingly just in time.

An Elleth with red-blonde hair appeared in the doorway, and almost seemed not to notice that Belda was awake for a moment. As soon as she did, her eyes widened a fraction and she rushed over, already talking. “Shh, it’s all right, child, you’re safe, don’t cry, little one…”

She continued like that, compassion and concern flooding her scent, and Belda blinked up at her for a moment.

Child? Little one? She could work with that.

Letting her breath quicken, she screwed up her face and squirmed away from the Elleth. “Where’s Uhdadê? Where am I? Who are you?” Her voice was weak, after all, but strong enough that she was able to use a higher, more child-like pitch; the way it cracked and wavered only added to the effect of being close to tears.

Even as the Elleth answered, though, Belda was trying to pick one age in particular; too young and her body would contradict it, too old and they wouldn’t underestimate her. “My name is Hithlum, little one, I’m a healer in the Palace of the Woodland Realm, which is where you are. I’m sorry, but I don’t know who ‘adodey’ is.”

She reached toward Belda; Belda didn’t have to feign her flinch away. Teens? Too young. Late tweens? Too old. Shaking her head, she kept her voice high and trembling. “No, we were in Mirkwood, Uhdadê said so, why did you take me away!?”

The Elleth flinched—visibly, which was so strange on an Elf that Belda almost forgot to act—and amended her answer. “‘The Woodland Realm’ is the proper name for the Greenwood, which some now call Mirkwood. Is… ‘uhdaday’ one of the Dwarves you were with?”

Settling on early tweens, Belda stared at her fearfully for a few moments, then nodded slowly, sniffling.

Footsteps came into earshot; the Elleth glanced toward the door, relief swirling in her scent. “Give me just a moment, little one, and I promise we’ll make things a bit better.”

She swept out of the room and toward the other Elf. Belda caught herself before she dropped the act entirely; there was no telling who was watching. _“Hithlum. How is she?”_

The sound of Sindarin reminded Belda: if she didn’t let on she understood it, they’d be less guarded around her. _“Awake, and asking about the other Dwarves.”_

 _“What?”_ Belda almost echoed the man, but bit the question back just in time. What did Hithlum mean, ‘other’ Dwarves? _“She’s— Why didn’t you send for me?”_

The voices were drawing nearer; Belda made sure she was still acting the part of the scared, bewildered tween. _“She only woke up a few moments ago. Wait.”_ The footsteps stopped just out of view, and Belda could see the edges of Hithlum’s hair and skirts as they swung just past the doorframe.

_“Hithlum—”_

_“Your Highness, wait. Slow down. She’s only young, you’ll scare her if you charge in.”_

_“…How young?”_

_“Do you think I know how Dwarves age?”_ Belda’s brows shot up; she schooled her expression hurriedly. _“If she were an Elf, I’d say she was perhaps sixty.”_

Belda hadn’t expected them to think she was a Dwarf—she would have thought her ears and feet would prove that much—but she could work with that. Dwarves came of age at sixty, so the equivalent of a tween would be between forty and the late fifties, she thought. The Elves entered a moment later, and she shrunk back from them.

The man Hithlum had been speaking to was the blond from the forest, and now that she wasn’t on the verge of passing out, she could see that he had blue eyes like most Elves she’d met, which made Hithlum’s brown more unusual, now that she thought about it. He was a bit shorter than Hithlum, as well, but his scent was as kind, and he wasn’t feigning the concern in his expression. _“Hello._ My name is Legolas. I found you in the forest. How are you feeling?”

Privately, she thought he probably didn’t talk to children often, but she kept that off her face. Sniffling, she let her bottom lip quiver. “I want Uhdadê. Where is he?”

Legolas’ brow creased, just noticeably. “I don’t know that name. Can you tell me what he looks like?”

Thinking of Dwalin, she didn’t have to fake the tears that sprang to her eyes, or the emotion in her voice. “He’s tall, and strong, and he has tattoos on his hands, and his name is Dwalin, and the Spiders had him, they had him and he— he—”

Hithlum rushed to the other side of the bed to try and embrace Belda; her flinch away was reflexive, but she didn’t try and touch her again. Looking somewhat panicked, Legolas hurried to assure her, “He’s here and he’s safe; I recognize the description. He’s safe.”

Belda wasn’t convinced; she let that show, and Hithlum suggested quickly, “I’m sure he could be brought here, couldn’t he?”

Belda brightened a bit, hopefully; Legolas glanced at her, panic flooding his scent, and hissed at Hithlum, _“He’s a prisoner! I can’t—”_

_“One Dwarf? The two of us could subdue him if we needed to.”_

_“Father entrusted me with this—”_ It was obvious from their tones what was being said; quickly, Belda called up genuine tears. Of course, then she had to actually fight not to start bawling, but Legolas stopped, fresh panic in his scent, so it was worth it. “No, of course I can have him brought! It’ll just be a few minutes!”

Breath shaking in her chest, Belda looked up at him pleadingly. “R—reall—y?”

“Yes, I promise!” Somewhat lamely, he patted her on the shoulder. “Please stop crying.”

If she hadn’t been crying a moment earlier, the laugh that burst from her would have ruined everything, but she was able to turn it to a sob. “You promise?”

He nodded rapidly. “Yes! In fact, I’ll go get him now!”

He was gone almost too quickly to see; Belda had to disguise another laugh. Hithlum cooed at her soothingly. “Legolas is a man of his word, he’ll bring him as quickly as he can.” She hesitated for an instant. “Is… ‘uhdade’ a title?”

Rubbing her sleeve over her eyes and nose, she nodded, then shook her head. “He’s my Uhdad, my Da. You promise he’s coming?”

Hithlum had blanched a shade, but she nodded at the question. “Yes, little one, I promise. Can you tell me your name? I’m Hithlum.”

Sniffling shakily, she whispered, “Belda.”

A soft smile—genuine, going by her scent—dawned over Hithlum’s face. “It’s very nice to meet you, Belda.”

Belda offered her a shaky smile in return.

“Can you tell me how old you are?”

Biting back a sarcastic retort—just how young did these Elves think she was?—she murmured shyly, “I’m almost fifty-one.”

Hithlum moved to the chair beside the bed, smiling. “Is that young, for a Dwarf? I’m afraid I’ve only ever met grown men of your kind.”

A purr built in Belda's chest, carried by feral satisfaction, and she smothered it ruthlessly; they had no idea what was and wasn’t normal for a female Dwarf. Belda could say anything she liked and they wouldn’t have any reason not to believe her. Still, she had a part to play. Frowning, she stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. “It’s not that young. I’ll be of age in a decade.”

By her scent, Hithlum had taken her protest exactly as Belda intended it; overcompensation from a child too young to understand what a child she was. “I mean no offense. I’ve been on this Earth for more than six thousand years, so nearly everyone seems a child to me.”

Belda gaped at her, not needing to feign a thing. “You’re six thousand?”

Hithlum’s smile widened. It wasn’t hard to see why she was a healer; Belda’d known any number of Hobbits who were less compassionate. “I am. There are any number of Elves who are older, but there are also many Elves who are younger. Legolas, for instance. He’s only seen seventeen centuries.”

Belda’s brows shot up before she could stop them. If he was that young, he’d probably never even seen a Hobbit. Actually, now she wondered why Hithlum hadn’t recognized what she was. Though, at least some of the settlements in Anduin were underground. It wouldn’t have been too difficult for those ancient Hobbits to avoid Elves entirely, especially if they only came near the ‘Woodland Realm’ in their soul-forms.

Hithlum nodded sagely. “He’s the second-youngest in the Woodland Realm.”

Belda pretended to consider that carefully. “So… there aren’t many children here?”

As Hithlum responded, footsteps came within earshot, two sets of Elven and one that could only be a Dwarf. “No, the youngest here is more than six hundred n—”

She broke off, looking toward the door; Belda tucked away the difference in their hearing. A handful of moments later, Legolas walked just past the door and gestured inside, and then Dwalin was walking in and there was no acting involved in the sob that burst out of her.

“Belda!” She was in his arms almost before she’d seen him break into a run, being held to him as tightly as she was trying to hold onto him, his tears soaking into her hair as hers were into his shirt. That distracted her from the sound of Hithlum shooing the other Elves out of the room and all of them moving out of easy earshot, that Dwalin wasn’t even wearing as much armor as he’d worn at Beorn’s, but mostly, mostly she was only focused on him.

As their sobs began to ease off, he drew back just enough to cradle her face in his hands, touching their foreheads together. “When that Elf ran off with you— you weren’t moving, you weren’t—”

Eyes burning, she lunged forward to bury her face in his hair, arms around his neck. She couldn’t hold on as tightly as she wanted to, but he didn’t need any prompting to wrap his arms around her and hold her in place. Turning her face until she was almost touching his ear, she murmured near-inaudibly, “They think I’m a Dwarven child. Play along.” He stiffened; raising her voice back to a normal level, she sobbed, “I was so scared, I thought— and the Spiders— I’m sorry, Uhdad, I didn’t fight, I just hid—”

“What are you talking about?” Horrorstruck—he’d give away everything!—she didn’t manage to speak before he went on, “Don’t you ever apologize to me for hiding, not when it keeps you safe. And you aren’t old enough to fight.”

Pouting despite the lack of an audience in view, she protested, “I’m nearly fifty-one!”

Drawing back to look her in the eye, his voice and eyes alike were hard as steel. “Fifty-one is not of age.”

Crumpling the way she would have if it were a real argument, she pitched into his chest. “Yes, Uhdad.”

“No, shh,” his arms wrapped around her, one hand stroking up and down her back, “I’m not angry, it’s all right. You’re not hurt?”

The spike of concern in his scent proved that it was a real question, and she answered truthfully, “Just tired, and hungry. How long was I asleep?”

“You just woke up a bit ago?” She nodded; his arms tightened around her as he shuddered. “Three full days and nights. We’re all safe, just bumps and bruises.”

A jolt ran through her at the thought of the Company; she jerked back to look him in the eye, heart pounding. “You’re sure? Kíli and Nori and everyone—”

“All safe.” His scent grew grieved. Silently, he mouthed, _“No Thorin.”_

She grimaced. _“He’s here somewhere.”_ He furrowed his brow at her; guiltily, she realized she’d never actually told Kíli what had happened to Thorin. _“His scent in the clearing disappeared with the Elves’. They have him.”_

His shock swiftly turned to rage, but he gritted his teeth and smothered it as she watched. Letting out a slow, controlled breath, he touched his forehead to hers again. Her eyes fell closed as a true sob shook in her chest, and he pulled her into his chest again as she clutched at him. For a few minutes, they sat like that, in silence.

She knew how much work she had to do, knew it would be an uphill battle, but there was a part of her that couldn’t help but feel that everything would be all right, now her Uhdad was there. It was childish and irrational, but all the same. Her father was there, and he was holding her, and they were safe from harm, at least. Everything would be all right.

Quietly, he murmured into her hair, “Balin’s spoken with the king a time or two. He’s told him that we’re only traveling to visit kin in the Iron Hills, but the bloody great ponce refuses to see that we’re telling the truth.”

Because they weren’t, of course. But maybe he would believe a sweet, innocent child a bit more readily. Feigning anxiety, she gripped his shirt more tightly. “Will this delay my apprenticeship? You promised I could speak with the Locksmiths’ Guild when we arrived!”

Smiling—with a bit too much relish until he reined it in—he drew back just far enough to tap his forehead against hers. “No, your Uncle Nori’ll keep you in practice once we’re out of here. He’ll see you right.”

Stifling a laugh at how obviously twitterpated he was at even the thought of Nori, Belda burrowed into his chest again. With his arms around her, she couldn’t imagine feeling safer.

That was when the Elves came back in, of course.

Stubbornly, Belda held all the tighter to him. A woman—the only woman in the room, so it had to be Hithlum—sighed. “I’m sorry, both of you, but this can’t go on. You, ah… D… Dalin, you’re still a prisoner. And Belda, you need rest if you’re going to recover properly.”

Someone moved closer on Dwalin’s other side from Hithlum; he spat at them and they lurched away, but then Belda heard someone draw a blade and her heart nearly stopped—

“Enough, Lethuin. _Sheathe your weapon, he’s no threat._ ” Belda knew that Dwalin understood Sindarin as well as she did, but somehow he didn’t react. The Elf who’d drawn his weapon—Lethuin—did sheathe it after a moment, then moved away. Legolas moved past him to stand at the head of the bed, behind Belda and facing Dwalin. “Dalin—”

“My name is Dwalin, weed-e—” She poked him, hard, and he fell silent, conflicted frustration in his scent.

Legolas had the grace to sound a bit embarrassed, at least. “Dwalin. I can see that your daughter is important to you.”

Dwalin’s arms tightened around her. “Is that a threat?”

The Elves didn’t outright say ‘how can you think that’, but the sentiment flooded their scents. After a shocked moment, Legolas continued, “You’ve injured three Elves in the course of their duties already. That is as unacceptable to me as being separated from your daughter is to you. So, a compromise. If you remain on your best behavior, you will be allowed to visit her as often and for as long as Hithlum considers beneficial to her. If you attack any more guards, or continue trying to break down the cell door, that privilege will be rescinded.”

Belda was glad her face was still buried in Dwalin’s chest, as she hadn’t been able to stop her jaw from dropping. That was an almost unbelievably generous offer, considering they had no reason to make it. It was more than she would expect Thorin to grant to an Elf in his custody.

Dwalin was silent for a moment, his scent suspicious, but contemplative. “…And the others in our Company?”

Legolas didn’t hesitate a moment before answering, “Their behavior will not impact whether or not you are allowed to visit her. Nor will they be allowed to visit her regardless of how well they behave.”

The latter was more what she would have expected, but the former was still generous.

Dwalin nodded slowly. “All right. But I want to see her once a day, at least.”

“That will depend on you. Now, will you go willingly?”

His arms tightened around her, but loosened as resignation suffused his scent. True tears burning her eyes, she gripped him all the tighter.

Dwalin sighed. “Kit…” His beard brushed over her head as he shook his head. His arms unwound from around her and instead slid under her, supporting her as he stood. She was only in the air for a few seconds, though, as he almost immediately laid her down on the sheets again, tucking her in the way her Da had when she was sick. A gulping sob left her at the memory, but she didn’t even have the strength to try and resist when Dwalin pulled her hands off. Looking her in the eyes, he rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes against the tears she could see building. “Kit, you know this has to happen. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I swear that to you.”

She did know that, and she knew that he would keep his word, but it hurt when he drew away regardless. She only just had the presence of mind to keep her voice childlike when she pleaded, “Don’t go.”

His face contorted with agony, he gathered her up in a last, desperate hug, but her strength was flagging and she couldn’t return it no matter how she tried. Her arms refused to reach higher than the edge of his shirt, and even that was too much strain for more than a few moments. A sob born of frustration as much as pain left her, and Dwalin lowered her down again, as gently, but far more reluctantly, she thought.

This time, she bit back her protests when he drew away, and Legolas and Lethuin didn’t give him a chance to look back when they escorted him from the room.

She had just enough strength to roll onto her side, as it turned out, and she sobbed into her pillow for long enough that her stomach was growling when she finally calmed.

Hithlum had disappeared somewhere, but she returned less than a minute after Belda stopped crying, so Belda supposed she’d been in earshot, at least. She offered Belda a tentative smile. “I didn’t want to intrude while you were sleeping, but now that you’re awake, would you like a bath? Or dinner— are you hungry? Or perhaps you’d like to sleep.”

Barely needing to exaggerate her misery, Belda sniffled. “All of them.”

Hithlum’s smile faltered. “Ah, well, which first, then?”

Belda thought for a moment, then pretended to think for a few more. “Food? And then a bath in the morning?”

Hithlum nodded with almost tangible relief. “I’ll fetch it right away.”

She was gone in a blink, and Belda almost laughed, despite herself.

The next few weeks—at least—were going to be humiliating, and degrading, and far, far too lonely, but at least while she was helpless, she wasn’t useless. These Elves clearly had had even less contact with mortals than the Elves in Rivendell did, or at least the Elves she’d met thus far had. They were practically falling over themselves and each other just to get her to stop crying, and they were willing to go to not-insignificant lengths to accomplish that.

She could work with this. It had been well over a decade since she’d been any sort of innocent lamb of a child, but they were gullible enough that she thought she could pull it off anyway. And Dwalin—

She took a moment to send silent, fervent thanks to Eru for her Uhdad’s quick thinking. If ‘Uncle’ Nori was her locksmithing master, the Elves might see fit to let them work together on it. She’d only been hoping to lay the groundwork for access to their smithy and perhaps broken locks that she could practice picking, but if she could have Nori’s help, that would make it twice as easy!

And the Company was safe. Dwalin, Nori, Kíli, and the rest, they were safe, and Thorin might not have been with them, but Belda knew that the Elves had taken him, and so he was safe, too, just being kept somewhere else.

Which left her in the perfect position to free her pack.

A grin pulled at her lips, which she bit back before it could truly form.

Hobbit-forms and soul-forms weren’t so different, after all.

Time to show that she was a fox either way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elves aren't going to know what hit them. (Literally. They've barely even heard of Hobbits.)  
> Notes: 1) Is it realistic (medically speaking) that Hithlum wouldn't have changed Belda into clean clothes while she was unconscious? No, probably not. Do I care? Nope. That's always seemed kind of squicky to me. I know it's for a good reason, but still. And in this case, since she doesn't have any open wounds (her scratches already healed), there's not as much of a need. Besides, given that they think she's a Dwarf, that basically guarantees that anything they did, she would react badly to, so Hithlum decided to just minimize the damage. 2) Hopefully I made a couple of you laugh with Legolas' 'please stop crying'. Idiots flailing around is one of my favorite tropes. Actually, for those of you who've seen Agent Carter, you know the scene at the end of season one, when Angie's pretending to cry? That's basically what I was going for. 3) Yeah, Elves probably have much better hearing than Hobbits, but since Hithlum wasn't listening for anything in particular, it took a few seconds longer than it would have if she were concentrating on what she could hear. Also, Belda's a dragon, so...   
> (*shifty-eyed* What? No, I'm not just using that as a catch-all Macguffin, what are you talking about?)  
> À demain!  
> (P.S., for those of you who don't watch Leverage/White Collar/(insert fandom centered around criminals here), a con (as in con artist) is a confidence game, and a long con is-- well, it's a con that's long. Most cons seem to be less than a day, typically, or only over a couple weeks. Anything longer than that (especially something that lasts months) is a long con.)


	42. Dwalin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes.

The ponce in charge stopped on the far side of the door, as he had the day before, and Dwalin finally let himself run. He’d been holding himself back the entire trip, but now it didn’t matter, because Belda was there, and then Belda was in his arms and he could breathe.

She was still too thin and too pale, but she was there and she was breathing and he could feel her holding onto him even if her grip was frighteningly weak. For several moments, he closed his eyes and just breathed, feeling his heart slow.

“Uhdad— what did you do to your hands?!” He glanced down at her, meeting her worried gaze for a moment before she took one of his hands in hers. She was moving more easily than the day before, at least, but even so, he lifted and turned his hand for her, as she tried to pull it.

“I had a… an altercation with the wall.” Looking at the ponce in charge out of the corner of his eye, he reminded the both of them, “I couldn’t hit the door, could I?”

He would have, if he could have. Tearing himself from Belda had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, and made all the worse by the fact that he was doing it willingly, and for Elves. It was the only way he could see Belda again, but that didn’t make it any less agonizing to walk away from her. He’d barely kept from attacking the guards, had only held himself in check with the thought that it would ensure he didn’t see Belda again for days, if ever. And then he’d been in his cell and the others had been asking where he’d been and he’d just needed to do something.

He’d come within a hair’s-breadth of throwing himself at the door like he had been for days.

Instead, he’d thrown himself at the wall, pummeling it until his hands were raw and bloody and he was fairly sure he’d broken something.

The few weed-eaters that had noticed had only sneered at his ‘obvious ploy to get them to open the door’.

He’d only just bitten back the retort that it was a poor ploy; what would he do when they did open the door? Bleed on them?

The ponce was frowning as though he hadn’t noticed his hands before, though, or at least hadn’t wondered at the reason. Belda looked to the healer-Elf on the other side of the room. “Hithlum, fix him!”

Dwalin clucked his tongue softly. “Manners, Belda.”

She tossed him a look of pure betrayal, and not for the first time, he marveled at how completely she was disguising herself. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she truly was an adolescent Hobbit.

She wasn't much like an adolescent Dwarf, but these leaf-eaters didn’t know that.

The Elleth moved closer, though she stayed a few feet away, and peered at his hands. “I don’t have the supplies in here.”

“So fetch them!” Dwalin glanced sternly at Belda, and she added, “Please.”

After a moment, the Elleth nodded. Glancing at the two Elves in the room, she walked past Dwalin and out of sight, and he focused again on Belda. “You’ve cleaned up, at least.”

She huffed, blushing, and picked at her sleeve. She was wearing a white blouse—child-sized, but still overlarge on her—and her hair was down and still wet from the bath she’d evidently taken. Without the grime of weeks’ travel on her, though, it was all the easier to see how pale she was. Rather than amber-brown, she was closer to pale-fawn, and too yellowish. That wasn’t something that happened to Dwarves, but he’d seen it in Men who’d holed up for the winter.

“You need more sun.”

She looked up at him, brow furrowed. “What?”

“You’re sun-starved.” Ignoring the pain in his hands, he picked her up and carried her over to the window, and sat down with her in his lap in the sunlight. “There’s no sun in that bloody forest.”

One of the Elves behind him made a little, offended noise, but he ignored them.

“You’re tired? Achy? Any dizziness?” To each, she gave a distracted nod, mostly focused on the light streaming through the window. Smiling fondly, he kissed the top of her head and turned her so that her back was flush with his chest and she was as much in the sunlight as possible. “Sun-starved.”

“Does that happen often to Dwarves?”

He barely kept from jumping; apparently the Elleth had returned while he was distracted. Irritated, he didn’t look at her. “No.”

She gave a low hum, which at least forewarned him that she was moving to stand beside him. To his surprise, she sat perpendicular to him, a basket of bandages and such in her lap. “Give me your hand.”

For a few moments, he only looked at her, coolly. Slowly, he extended a hand toward her, turning his attention back to Belda. “But you slept well? You’re eating enough?”

Belda snorted quietly, eyes closed. “Getting there. Apparently I’m ‘still not strong enough’ for real food.”

The Elleth agreed, “No, you aren’t. Give it another day or so; it’s been too long since you ate properly.” Tying off the bandage on that hand, she stood and moved to his other side; he held his hand out before she even asked. Glancing between it and his face, she assured him, “She’s recovering well. These things take time, that’s all.”

He just grunted. Belda snickered at him, but he didn’t have the heart to even pretend to be cross. Wrapping his free arm around her middle, he ignored how wet her hair was and rested his head on her curls; closing his eyes, he basked in the sunlight as she was. Dwarves didn’t need it like Men—or Hobbits, evidently—did, but it still felt nice.

Actually, now that he thought about it, the Men he’d seen grow sun-starved had taken twice as long, at least.

An unexpected pain in his hand made him hiss, and the Elleth met his glare with a disapproving one of her own. “You broke one of the bones in your third finger, and two in your fourth.”

He shrugged defiantly, but Belda twisted around to look at his hand, then at him, worry clear in her expression. Sighing, he gentled his voice. “Bones heal. I’m fine.”

She raised a brow, unimpressed.

He didn’t need to hear her to know what she would say, though. Kissing her temple, he promised, perhaps a bit grudgingly, “I won’t do it again.”

“Or anything like it?”

“Or anything like it.”

She nodded, turning to face the sunlight again, and once the Elleth tied off the bandages on his hand, he looped it over his other arm, hugging Belda to him while he could.

* * *

 

Belda

 

She couldn’t bear to watch Dwalin leave. Instead, she just closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun, and tried not to cry.

That was getting easier; evidently, one of the symptoms Dwalin hadn’t mentioned the day before was depression. It still wasn’t half as bad as when she was under the trees, but even so, she wanted her mind as clear as possible. And she needed the sunlight anyway.

Now, if she could get to uncorrupted ground during a rainstorm, that would be perfect, but that wasn’t exactly likely.

She could still feel the forest’s taint. Not nearly to the same degree, but she could see why Beorn had warned her these Elves were less wise and more dangerous than their cousins in Rivendell. They all carried the same darkness as the forest, to differing degrees.

What was confusing was which had much and which had less. According to Hithlum—who was barely tainted at all—Lethuin and Legolas both went into the forest often, but Legolas was far less tainted than Lethuin. That might have been a matter of age, but the guard who came with Legolas and Dwalin that day wasn’t Lethuin, he was an Elf called Gobennas, who Hithlum said had been a guard even longer than Lethuin and went into the forest as often, but he wasn’t nearly as tainted.

He was still more tainted than Legolas, but that wasn’t exactly hard. Even Hithlum was more tainted than Legolas.

But none of them compared to the ring.

Belda had asked for a cord to keep her bead on the previous morning, since they’d have to undo her braid to wash her hair properly. (Her hair was still down, actually, since Dwalin’s hands were still bandaged, Belda had no idea how to braid, and she wasn’t about to let anyone else do it.) Hithlum had given her a chain, instead—only simple, but beautiful in its simplicity—and showed her how the clasp had a double latch so that it was impossible for it to come undone accidentally.

And when Hithlum hadn’t been looking, Belda had slipped the ring onto the chain as well, and hidden it and her bead under her shirt.

How cold Hobbits ran—even compared to Elves—did have an advantage in that Hithlum had been easy to convince that Belda needed more layers than just the one shirt, which wouldn’t have hidden the ring at all. Now she had a slightly-more-fitted undershirt, and a sort of soft corset under that. The corset wasn’t much help with her bust, but it was thick enough that even the ring’s shape couldn’t be seen through it.

Hithlum had been fascinated with Belda’s brassiere, though. It had distracted her so much that she’d agreed to let Belda keep hold of Kíli's rune stone without even asking what it was. According to her, Ellith didn’t generally need more than the sort of corset Belda was wearing now, so they’d never thought to improve on them. When she was taking Belda’s clothes away to be cleaned, she’d asked permission to show the brassiere to a seamstress friend of hers, which Belda had given easily. She had a feeling there were going to be at least a few women who starting wearing Hobbit-style underthings.

The thought nearly made her laugh, despite herself. But then, Gandalf had said something about that at Beorn’s, hadn’t he? That Elves were too focused on tradition and didn’t have enough necessity to make them innovate much. He’d been talking about technology, not clothing, but still.

But Hithlum had seen her scars, as well. She’d even asked if her and Dwalin’s matching crescent ears were a Dwarvish custom. That, at least, Belda hadn’t had to lie about, and assuring Hithlum that it was only a coincidence (and assuring her that Dwarves’ ears rounded off as they grew) had given her the time to think of a story to explain the rest.

Finding a way to communicate to Dwalin that she’d said it was because she and her mother had been besieged by wolves and Dwalin had only just gotten there in time to save Belda had been tricky, but she’d managed. She wasn’t entirely sure how, in retrospect, but she had.

Hithlum’s footsteps came into earshot, and Belda sighed, steeling herself internally.

Back to the game.

* * *

 

Legolas

 

Thranduil looked impassively down at him from the throne. Despite the distance, Legolas preferred it when he spoke from his throne.

He only stood on Legolas’ level to admonish him when he was truly angry.

Neither of them had spoken yet. It was a game, of sorts. To speak out of turn would be to disrespect his father and king. To stay silent was to feel as though the anticipation alone would destroy him.

Finally, Thranduil spoke. “You have allowed the prisoners to wander our halls.”

Legolas stifled his automatic rebuttal. It would only make things worse.

After another eternity, Thranduil gestured magnanimously. “Explain.”

“Only one Dwarf has been allowed out of his cell, and only under armed guard. Before he was allowed such, he was among the most belligerent of them. Now that he understands that he could lose that privilege at any time, he’s the most manageable of them.” Thranduil’s expression didn’t change. Legolas swallowed back the urge to keep babbling until he got a response.

“Your reasoning.”

“The girl being treated is his daughter. She was panicked when she woke in the Healing Wing, and didn’t calm until he was brought to her. Hithlum’s diagnosis is that keeping them apart would be detrimental to the girl’s recovery, and my own judgement was that the inconvenience of escorting him back and forth is worth the decrease of injuries to our guards.”

Thranduil gave a slight nod, and Legolas fell silent. For a few moments, Thranduil only looked at him inscrutably. Finally, he nodded once. “Consider allowing one or two others the same. The number of injuries received in the days since their capture is unacceptable.”

Legolas bowed, recognizing the implicit dismissal. “Father.”

* * *

 

Hithlum

 

“No.”

Legolas stared at her for a moment. “What?”

“No. A single, daily visit from her father is leaving her exhausted. Anything further and she could begin losing ground.” Legolas blanched a fraction; Hithlum sympathized. Even Lethuin had begun to warm to Belda, and there weren’t many Elves in the Realm more hard-hearted than him.

There was something about that girl. Something… clear. She was a breath of fresh air in Halls that had stood stagnant too long, and only an Orc could watch her with her father and not be moved in the slightest. He was as unpleasant as she remembered Dwarves being, but clearly, female Dwarves were far more agreeable, and Belda herself was just darling.

But that was all the more reason to think of her health before anything else.

Legolas’ jaw tightened. “When do you think she’ll be ready for more visitors, then?”

Hithlum sighed. “A week. Perhaps two. She’s recovering more quickly than I would have expected, but there’s no knowing if that’s going to change.”

“A week, then.”

“A week, and then we’ll talk again.”

* * *

 

Losnyrn

 

The Dwarfling’s eyes were closed, her breathing the steady, deep rhythm of sleep, but she squirmed in her chair when a cloud passed over the sun, so clearly she wasn’t fully asleep.

He’d thought, when he first walked over to the chair by the window, that she’d heard him. But it had been a handful of minutes, and she still hadn’t reacted to his presence. Quietly, he cleared his throat.

Her breathing faltered, then her eyes fluttered open, landing on him a moment later. “Oh, hello.” She rubbed her eyes weakly, drawing his attention to her wrists; they were far less skeletal than they had been when Legolas first brought her back, six days prior, but still thin. “I’m sorry, I get so tired…” A yawn punctuated the statement. Blinking the sleep from her strange eyes, she smiled up at him. “Are you one of the Company’s guards? It’s just that Uhdadê was already here today.”

On the unfamiliar name, her smile faltered, then fell with her shoulders, and she lowered her eyes as they filled with tears. Despite himself, Losnyrn felt a pang. Shoving that down, he corrected her, “I am Crown Prince Losnyrn, Legolas’ brother.”

Her eyes snapped to him as her jaw dropped. “You’re a prince? Legolas is a prince?”

He raised a brow. “You weren’t aware?”

She shook her head loosely, still gaping. “Hithlum never said!”

Smothering a faint urge to smile, he leaned against the wall beside the window and watched her pupils narrow further into slits. “I find myself curious how you found our forest.”

She blinked at him. “Well, it is rather large, even on a map of all Eriador.”

Swallowing a sharp stricture, he reminded himself that she was only fifty and reworded his question. “What you thought of our forest. As compared to other forests.”

To his shock, she teared up immediately. “It was so horrible! All dark and stale and scary and there were things staring at us in the dark and growling and flying and moths and I don’t know how you can bear it!”

She broke into loud, gulping sobs, and Hithlum rushed into the room. “What did you do?!”

Still dumbfounded, he could barely manage a stammered, “I don’t— I didn’t— I—”

“Get out!” He obeyed as quickly as he could, but lingered outside the door, listening as Hithlum tried vainly to comfort the girl, and the girl—after less than a minute—cried herself to sleep.

Once she was asleep, he left before Hithlum could chase him away, mind still whirling with what the girl had said.

Was that how outsiders saw the Greenwood? As a terrifying, forbidding, nightmare of a forest?

Losnyrn shook his head clear of the troubling thoughts. Doubt was weakness, and he couldn’t afford any weakness.

He was the Heir of the Woodland Realm. He would not fail his king.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Even as sleep claimed her, Belda’s fingers curled and uncurled restlessly. The prince who’d just been in—she’d known that Legolas was a ‘Highness’, but it was nice to have it confirmed—had been the most tainted Elf she’d met so far. His question had been innocuous enough, but the way he’d stood over her had made her skin crawl. She’d barely been able to pretend to be asleep.

He was trouble.

She would have to be very, very careful.

* * *

 

Tauriel

 

The dungeons were nearly deserted at night, as always. Elves had no need to sleep as the other races did, but sleeping prisoners didn’t need as much monitoring.

When they actually slept.

Despite Legolas’ assignment as overseer of the prisoners, Tauriel still liked to check the dungeons herself once or twice a night. She liked the peace of the quiet halls.

They weren’t as quiet this time, though.

“…ut is she all right?”

“I told you, she’s tired and half starved; she’s as well as she can be.”

It was the Dwarves, talking amongst themselves. Tauriel moved silently closer, trying to better hear the quiet conversation.

“She got scraped up, climbing the tree— have they treated that?”

“You asked about that yesterday, Nori, and I still don’t know. I didn’t see any scratches on her when I saw her today.”

Obviously, they were talking about the girl. What was her name again?

A third speaker chimed in, his voice nearly as low as the second. “She heals fast. She could barely even walk after the Carrock, and a week later, she was fine.”

Tauriel frowned; why wouldn’t a member of their own Company know that?

A dull thud sounded, then a sigh. The first speaker, Nori asked plaintively, “You’re sure?”

A fourth, higher voice snapped, “We’ve talked about this five times already! It’s late— just go to bed!”

Tauriel’s brows crept up at the rudeness of the Dwarf, but aside from some grumbling, no one protested, and within several minutes, most of them were asleep, and a few were snoring.

Just as she was about to leave, a fifth Dwarf spoke quietly. “That was too harsh, Fíli.”

The fourth—Fíli, apparently—growled, but kept his voice low. “I know, but it—” He cut himself off with another growl and lowered his voice even further. “I wish we could really talk.”

“Me, too. But since there’s not much we can talk about safely, go a bit easier on them.”

“All right, Ori.”

“That quick? I was planning a whole speech.”

“Well, you made a good point,” Fíli laughed. “Good night, Ori.”

“Good night.”

Tauriel waited a few minutes further, but they all seemed to be asleep now. A bit curious if she could put names to faces, she padded forward, rather then go back.

The fifth Dwarf, Ori, had sounded closer than most of the rest; the first two Dwarves she passed were grey-bearded, and Ori hadn’t sounded that old. The third was a short redhead with beard and hair alike cropped shorter than the others. He was young enough to be Ori, she thought.

Fíli’s voice hadn’t been far from Ori’s. The very next cell held a young blond, though he had a bit more of a beard than Ori, so perhaps he was a bit older. Even in sleep, the blond’s forehead was creased.

The next several cells could have been the first and second speakers, Nori and the girl’s father, but the third speaker had sounded the furthest from the rest, and close to the first and second, and none of these several were young enough to be him. Finally, she passed a Dwarf who looked familiar, and a moment’s thought recalled that he was the one who’d been the most frantic when Legolas took the girl ahead to the Halls. This was the second speaker, then, though she couldn’t remember his name. He shifted in his sleep as she watched, but still seemed less troubled than Fíli.

The next cell was a darker redhead with his hair in an elaborate style, his brow creased, and— Tauriel leaned to the side for a better angle. Were his eyebrows actually braided into his hair?

She had no idea what to think of that.

It was easy to guess that the next cell held the third speaker, but she certainly didn’t expect to look into the cell and see him looking back at her.

That was enough of a shock, but he was also one of the darker Dwarves, and his glare seemed to burn straight through Tauriel. A moment later, he looked away, leaning his head back against the cell wall. She might have expected him to close his eyes, to feign sleep if not to actually attain it, but he only fixed his eyes on the ceiling. It made the shadows under his eyes all the more evident.

Somewhat unnerved, Tauriel kept moving, and retired to her room to think. The more she learned about these Dwarves, the less sense they made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No notes today, other than to point out that I'm skimming over the days and the rest of the chapters will be the same. Sorry if it's confusing, but I'm not sure there's any elegant way to communicate timeskips.  
> Although, since this is going to be a short note, what are everyone's thoughts on having the narrator's name at the top of their section? That's how I have it formatted in my documents, but I'm not sure how well it works on here. I'm thinking about getting rid of them, actually. I'd keep the lines, though. Thoughts?   
> À demain!


	43. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cat may look at a king, but a fox will lie to them.

Belda clung to Legolas’ hand as they walked on a high walkway. Not for the first time, he squeezed her hand and promised, “I won’t let you fall.”

She was glad Elves didn’t have a sense of smell like Hobbits; she’d never have been able to convince a Hobbit that she actually was afraid. With these Elves, though, all she had to do was cling to them and tremble and they were fooled. Hithlum had mentioned that she could hear Belda’s heartbeat from across the room a few days prior, though, so Belda was being careful to keep that consistent, as well. And she might not have been afraid of the drop, but she was afraid of failing her pack. That worked.

It made her chest tighten and her throat close off until she could barely breathe, but it worked.

Eyes wide, she looked up at Legolas’ reassuring smile and offered a tremulous one of her own. He squeezed her hand again and looked ahead, and she followed suit.

Hithlum had only given her permission to leave the Healing Wing the day before, nearly two weeks since she woke up, and never unaccompanied. Belda could understand her reasoning—she still had to nap in the afternoon, whether she wanted to or not—but being cooped up in that room had been driving her slowly out of her mind. The window and sunshine helped, but all the same, it was too close to being locked in her room at Bag-End.

That had given her an idea, though. Longo and Camellia had spent more than a decade trying to turn her into a perfect Baggins. She’d fought them every step of the way, but she’d learned from them, regardless. She’d learned which fork to use and when to include a fish course, but she’d also learned how to lie through her teeth and how to look people she loathed in the eye with a smile. She’d learned how to hide everything about her that people didn’t want to see.

She hated doing that, and had never had the patience to maintain it for more than a few weeks, but she’d manage it this time. She had to.

The path twisted and turned enough to be dizzying, but she was able to keep her bearings. Thorin or Kíli would be hopelessly lost, she was sure, but while she was Durin-claimed, she was not Durin-born.

But she’d already decided to pretend to have a Durin’s sense of direction. When her opportunity to free the Company came, she wanted to be able to take it. If the Elves thought she literally couldn’t navigate on her own, they’d be that much more unprepared for her to escape.

The path’s curved onto a view of an imposing throne, the size of it excessive even by Tall Folk’s standards, and clearly designed with intimidation in mind. Belda let her jaw drop, shoving down her sneer. Sitting atop the throne was a blond Elf, a crown of autumn leaves and berries on his head; he looked a good deal like both his sons, with the same long sheets of hair, the same piercing eyes, the same sharp features.

And the same coldness as Losnyrn. The same taint, radiating out from him to such an extent that she could feel it before they were twenty feet from him. It didn’t take much effort for her to feign a shiver and tuck herself partially behind Legolas.

She was just glad that Hithlum had insisted on asking her seamstress friend to whip up a quick outfit for Belda. It was only a plain red tunic that fell nearly to her knees and a simple brown skirt that fell nearly to the floor, but they fit her well enough. She was still wearing her usual layers underneath them, but without them—

Well, if she’d only been wearing her usual layers, she still would have been fine, but the persona she’d created would have felt naked, and Hithlum had guessed that. Or maybe Hithlum had only been thinking ahead. Either way, the clothes still helped, in a way. They were so simple and the collar of the tunic was so square that they almost seemed like Dwarven clothes, to Belda. It was only a vague approximation, she knew, by someone who’d never seen a Dwarven dress in her life, but…

Belda’d never seen a Dwarven dress, either. And while Elven clothes were far too formal for a Hobbit, this compromise was nice. The style and flow of an Elf, mixed with the practicality of a Dwarf. It still wasn’t close to Hobbit fashions, but every glimpse of red when she looked down reminded her of the part she was playing. That helped.

The silk slippers didn’t. She felt like she was walking on ice.

There was an open space directly before the throne, easily large enough for two dozen Hobbits, but probably only a half dozen Elves, comfortably. They were far less tactile than Hobbits.

Legolas stopped them in the middle of the open space, too close to the throne for her to be able to see more than the top of the king’s head and his crown. He didn’t say a word, and neither did she, though she telegraphed fear and confusion as she had been the entire walk.

Smoothly, the king stood and looked down at her impassively. “So, this is the Dwarfling.”

Clutching Legolas’ hand, she visibly steeled herself and stepped a bit away from him, making sure that her bearing, expression, and heartbeat all conveyed trepidation, at least.

Pace leisurely, the king descended the stairs that curled around the space as he spoke. “What is your name, child?”

Dipping into a clumsy curtsy, she whispered in a trembling voice, “Belda Dwalinul, sir.”

As she straightened, the king reached the bottom of the stairs and strode toward her; with a squeak, she hid behind Legolas again, using her hair to hide her face entirely. Both men’s scents carried confusion, but Legolas was actually a bit alarmed. They exchanged a glance—she could only see the king’s face through her hair, and that was unreadable—before the king crouched down, closer to her level. That was unexpected enough that she relaxed a bit naturally, though she still would have if she’d thought about it.

He still didn’t show much emotion, but his scent held flickers of compassion mixed in with the annoyance and boredom that typified his character. “My name is King Thranduil. You are my guest, here in the Woodland Realm.”

He paused, evidently waiting for some sort of response. The only thing she could think to say was “Pleased to meet you, sir. Thank you for letting me stay.”

Amused scorn flashed through his scent—evidently, that wasn’t the proper response—but it was paired with satisfaction. So the king liked to feel important. He was certainly in the right line of work. “To shelter an injured child is no less than any Elf should do,” he told her magnanimously, “but your thanks are welcome.” He stood again, but she didn’t hide or cower; that would only prolong the inevitable. She did sweep her hair over her shoulder so that he could actually see her, though. “Could you tell me why you and your father were traveling through the wood?”

And there it was. Glancing at Legolas with feigned nerves, she swallowed and answered with a slight tremor in her voice, “We’re all going to the Iron Hills, sir. We have family there.”

Thranduil’s expression didn’t change, but shock and anger flashed through his scent. Suspicion crept in a moment later, but even so, she had to suppress a satisfied purr; evidently, she was a much better liar than her pack. “Did no one object to traveling through the forest?”

Fortunately, she’d already agreed on an explanation with Dwalin. “We didn’t plan it, sir— um, your Majesty,” she called up a blush, ducking her head. “There were Orcs chasing us from the Misty Mountains, and we had to find a way to lose them.”

He was silent for a moment, suspicion waxing and waning in his scent as he wrestled with the information. “Then why did you continue on rather than wait the Orcs out?”

She glanced up, at that, and opened her mouth to answer, then closed it with a feigned wince. “I wasn’t supposed to be listening. You won’t tell Uhdadê I know?”

He nodded gravely. “You have my word.”

Biting her lip, she searched his face for a moment as though she couldn’t smell his scorn or lack of sincerity. Nodding, she relaxed a fraction and offered him a tiny, embarrassed smile for a moment. “I always get in trouble for eavesdropping. Uhdadê and Uncle Thorin were talking about an Orc who fought Uncle Thorin a long time ago, and they said that he’d wait and catch us when we came back out, so we didn’t have a choice, we had to keep going.”

Thranduil’s brows contracted a fraction. “‘Uncle’ Thorin?”

She nodded innocently. “He’s not really my Uncle, but I always call him that. Like with Nori!”

Restrained glee flared up in Thranduil’s scent; she was careful to keep her expression from changing. “And would you say that you’re close to your Uncle Thorin?”

She pretended to think. “Well… not very close. We argue sometimes, but—” She broke off, widening her eyes. “Uhdadê hasn’t said anything about seeing him here! He’s not still in the forest, is he?” Feigning panic, she looked between the two Elves. “He’s not all alone out there, with the dark and the spiders and—”

“He’s here.” Even as she hid her satisfaction under relief, Thranduil bent slightly toward her. “I’m afraid he and I have been arguing, as well, and he refuses to listen to me.”

“Oh.” She stuck her lower lip out a hair. “That’s not right, you’re much nicer than he always sai—” Calling up a vivid blush, she cut herself off.

Thranduil smiled; it looked so stiff on his face that she was tempted to give him pointers, for a moment. “Well, you know how he can be, I’m sure.”

Blush fading, she nodded. “He’s even more stubborn than Uhdadê, sometimes. And he never admits when he’s wrong.” Biting her lip again, she offered tentatively, “Maybe… maybe I could talk to him? Maybe he’d listen to me a bit better than a stranger.”

Thranduil’s smile smoothed into something more genuine, and more cruel, though she didn’t let on that she noticed that. “If you would like to do that, I see no reason to stop you.”

She smiled at him, but a yawn caught her off guard. Legolas stifled a laugh. “I think Hithlum would have my head if I didn’t take you to the Healing Wing before anything else.”

Thranduil straightened to look at him son; belatedly, Belda realized that he was a bit taller. It was hard to be sure from her angle, but she thought he was about the same height as Losnyrn. _“Why do you refuse to obey me, Legolas?”_

Belda kept her expression uncomprehendingly curious, looking between them as they spoke. _“I would obey you fully, father. I believe that Oakenshield would react badly to a visit from her if she were noticeably fatigued. He might accuse us of wronging her and be all the more intractable for it.”_

Thranduil looked impassively at his son for a few moments. The coldness in the stare reminded Belda unpleasantly of Longo, though Thranduil’s scent held none of the hostility Longo had always had for her. There was almost no affection in Thranduil’s scent, either, but as far as she could tell, he didn’t dislike his son. He was just apathetic toward him.

At least Belladonna had had the decency to hide her apathy so that Belda didn’t recognize it for what it was. Thranduil didn’t seem to care whether Legolas knew or not.

She was careful to keep her expression merely curious. Snarling at Thranduil would ruin everything.

_“Very well. Take her to see Oakenshield before her father’s visit tomorrow.”_

Legolas bowed; she followed his lead and curtsied clumsily. _“Father.”_

Thranduil turned away and ascended to his throne again; Legolas led her away without a word. It wasn’t until they were far out of earshot of the throne room that he smiled down at her. “You can see your Uncle Thorin in the morning.”

She furrowed her brow slightly. “Not until then? Are you sure I can’t see him today?”

“You’re still recovering, little one.”

“But Hithlum said I could have multiple visitors now!” That was why they’d gone to see Thranduil, she suspected; he’d probably given orders for her to be brought to him as soon as she was able. “I know I need to rest for a bit, but it’s early yet. Couldn’t I go tonight?”

Legolas’s scent turned conflicted, but he shook his head and looked forward again. “No. Hithlum would have both our heads.”

“Please, Legolas?” She had to adjust her tactics for the height difference and the innocence she was trying to telegraph, but all the same, the same sort of approach that she used on Ori in Rivendell would work here. The conflict in Legolas’ scent only strengthened when he met her eyes. “I feel wretched for forgetting about him for so long, and I’m sure he’s worried about me, too. Please?”

He wrenched his eyes away, jaw set, and she deflated, hanging her head. After a few moments, he sighed quietly. “All right, but after dinner, and only if Hithlum agrees.”

Head shooting up, she beamed at him until a yawn interrupted her. He chuckled and adjusted his hold on her hand to be a bit more secure.

She didn’t mind, though. She’d been recovering just a bit faster than she’d been letting on, so it wouldn’t be hard to get Hithlum to approve.

Though… Delicately, she furrowed her brow, then gradually slowed her pace. Legolas noticed before they’d come to a complete stop, at least. “What is it?”

“Well, it— it’s just…” Biting her lip, she met his eyes hesitantly. This would have to be handled carefully. “Uncle Thorin doesn’t like any Elves, really, not just the king, so I…”

She trailed off, letting her head drop. Legolas knelt down to look her in the eye, expression and scent concerned. “Go on, Belda.”

Taking a deep breath, she looked him in the eye, telegraphing trepidation. “I don’t think he’ll want to be really honest if he thinks there are any Elves watching. Or listening.” Legolas’ eyes widened, jaw clenching, and she shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry. I know that it’s not the done thing, but he’s hard enough to argue ‘round when he’s at home where it’s safe. I don’t… If he thinks he has to be on guard all the time, I don’t think I can get him to listen to me.”

Exhaling heavily, Legolas looked her full in the face, scent more conflicted than ever. “Do you really think this is the only way?”

Keeping her expression apologetic, but solemn, she nodded.

After closing his eyes for a moment, Legolas stood and led her down the path again. “I’ll consider it.”

She nodded again, this time with resignation. “All right, Legolas.”

Guilt flickered in his scent for a moment, heightening the conflict, but he didn’t say anything.

That was all right. She’d convince him.

* * *

 

Thorin

 

When he first heard a key rattle in the lock, he thought he was imagining things. It had only been fifteen days since Thranduil had him locked away, after all, and ‘a hundred years was a mere blink in the life of an Elf’, as he’d so modestly put it. Even the memory of the words brought a disgusted sneer to Thorin’s lips; was there nothing Elves wouldn’t stoop to in their need to feel superior to everyone else?

But then the lock clunked open. Thorin leapt to his feet, but the appearance of Belda in the doorway shocked him into stillness. A blond Elf stood behind her and glared at Thorin for a moment, then closed and locked the door behind her.

Shaking off the shock, he stepped forward. “Belda, what—”

She cut him off with a sharp gesture, then leaned her head sideways against the door, sweeping a mountain of curls out of the way as she did.

“B—”

She didn’t even look at him, just held up her index finger. After a few long moments, she breathed, “He’s gone.” Giving a melodramatic groan, she sank to her knees and twisted around so that she could lay fully stretched out on the floor. “I swear, if I have to keep dealing with bloody Elves for too much longer, my head is just going to fall straight off.”

That nearly made him laugh—he could certainly sympathize, after a lifetime spent dealing with Men—but he forced himself to focus. “What are you doing here? And in Elf-made clothes?”

His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized her further; she was obviously being fed better than he was, by the weight she’d regained, but her hair was down, spread over the stone floor. It almost seemed as though she’d cut it at first glance, but with how curly it was, it wasn’t so surprising that it would seem shorter. She looked up at him, brows raised. “Nicely spotted! I would’ve expected you to notice the shoes first.”

At the prompt, he looked toward her feet and realized she was wearing grey slippers. “Is that silk?”

“Yes.” He raised a brow at her petulant tone, and she elaborated, “They’re all slippery. I might like them for gloves or something, but I hate them as shoes.”

Curiosity piqued, he asked, “Do Hobbits ever wear shoes?”

“During the winters, if they’re especially cold. The entire Company’s here.”

The abrupt change of subject made him dizzy, or perhaps that was relief. He sat heavily. “All of them?”

“Every one. They’re safe, sound, and healthy. They’re in cells, but that was inevitable.”

Remembering how she’d pushed in favor of seeking out the Elves, he narrowed his eyes at her. “Did you get them caught intentionally?”

At that, she scowled darkly at him. “Don’t be insulting. It was all I could do to keep them alive; keeping them free would have been impossible even if I’d been at full strength.”

Thinking of how skeletal she’d been the last time he’d seen her, how fragile-looking, he couldn’t find it in him to argue. He couldn’t meet her eyes, either, or speak above a murmur. “What happened?”

It was a moment before she answered. “Elves. I assume you were sent to sleep like I was when you stepped into the clearing.” He nodded once. “Well, the lights went out with you. Not just the torches, all the light in the forest— even I couldn’t see anything. And whatever magic put out the lights confused everyone. I haven’t had a chance to ask anyone else how it felt to them, but I couldn’t so much as lift a finger without fetching up everything in my stomach and then some. It took hours before I could move, and by then everyone else had wandered away and I had to go find them.”

After a few moments of silence, he glanced over to see that she was blushing vividly. Eyes on the ceiling, she managed after another few moments, “I— well, he— the strongest scent— I— I found Kíli first. And w— I tr— well, the Spiders—”

A dark suspicion had settled into his gut when she mentioned Kíli; he cut her off with a growl. “I never did get a straight answer from you about what you were doing with Kíli by the Enchanted River.”

Her blush deepened, but at least she stopped stammering. After a few moments, she mumbled, “Well, you never asked.”

“Belda.”

She flinched. As she spoke, eyes still on the ceiling and away from him, her arms rose to wrap around herself. “What does it matter to you? You threw me out of the pack.”

Now he flinched. “I didn’t—”

“You did.”

Exhaling heavily, he admitted, “I shouldn’t have said that. Not like I did.”

Bracing herself on the stone, she shoved upright to glare at him. “Then how?”

“I wish I’d left you in Rivendell—”

She flinched badly, expression crumpling.

“—because there, you’d be safe.”

Blinking, she looked hesitantly up at him. “…What?”

Not for the first time, he saw what a chasm there was between their ways of thinking. “I didn’t say that to mean that I don’t want you as part of my pack. You’re as much a member of my pack as you have been since you signed the contract.” He paused, blinking as he realized he was saying ‘pack’ when he was thinking ‘Company’. Shaking his head, he turned to face her fully. “If you were twenty years older, I wouldn’t have any compunctions, but Striplings aren’t even allowed near a battle until they’re forty, at least. There have been exceptions, but every one is a tragedy.

“I do not wish that you had never joined my Company. I wish that this was not a world in which you—and Fíli and Kíli, for that matter—had ever been put in that position. I wish that the world was kinder, and that the three of you could have stayed behind in safety.” Her eyes had begun filling with tears partway through his statement, and he looked away uncomfortably as she wiped them. “But, since I’ve obviously not made it clear enough, understand that in a kinder world, I would have welcomed you to our family gladly, and been glad that you and Dwalin found each other.”

At that, she snorted, voice thick with laughter and tears alike. “No, you wouldn’t have, you’d have still been grumpy and standoffish because you don’t like sharing.”

He clenched his jaw. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, right, because it doesn’t bother you in the slightest that Dwalin hasn’t been spending as much time with you since he adopted me.”

A low growl filled the room; it took Thorin a moment to realize it was him.

A light touch on his arm startled him, but he managed not to strike out at it. Belda smiled reassuringly at him from just over his shoulder. “He misses spending time with you, too. You’re his best friend as much as he’s yours.”

Despite himself, he couldn’t help but be a bit comforted by that. Catching himself, he scowled and shot off a sarcastic, “Oh, and he told you that.”

“No. But I can tell.”

He looked at her askance at that, but with her nose, she probably could. But they’d gotten off-topic. “You still haven’t told me what you were doing with my sister-son.”

She blushed nearly as red as her tunic, and looked down at the hem of it as she responded. “I think you mean what ‘we’ were doing with ‘each other’; it’s not like I was the only one involved.”

She had a point, but he didn’t soften his glare. “Answer.”

Tensing, she continued picking at her tunic. He was about to order her to speak again when she answered. “I like him, all right? He’s my friend, and he’s not exactly ugly, is he? Maybe nothing will come of it, that’s up to him, but for the time being, I don’t see why we shouldn’t spend time together.”

The mix of plaintive defensiveness in her voice tore at him, but he kept his voice hard. “He’s a Prince of Erebor, and of Durin’s Line.”

Her shoulders slumped as she exhaled quietly. “I know.” Sniffling, she shook her head and started picking at her sleeve. “I know, but even so, is it so terrible that we enjoy spending time together?”

He snorted. “If I thought all you were doing was spending time together, I wouldn’t be so worried.”

Her only response was to tilt her head so that her hair fell to hide her face.

His mirth abruptly died. “You aren’t—”

He couldn’t manage a single word further. Peeking through her hair at him, she jolted and yelped, “NO! Eyru Yavanna, no! I am not bloody old enough to get married!”

A wave of sheer relief had swept through him at the denial, but he still had to squint at her. “I wasn’t talking about marriage.”

“To a Hobbit, you were.” He didn’t understand. She rolled her eyes at him as she pushed her hair back again, exasperated, but her blush darkened a shade. “We don’t have fiddly little ceremonies like Men do—and Dwarves, I take it—just a party to announce intent. Married is as married does, and all that.”

What… oh. Oh. He might have thought she was making it up to appease him, but he doubted she’d have so much scorn in her voice if she were actively trying to convince him she was telling the truth.

She raised her brows at him challengingly. “Now, if you’d care to hear the rest of what you missed?” Accepting the slight chide in her tone, he inclined his head and gestured to her to continue. Nodding, she laid down again; for the first time, he realized there were bags under her eyes. “There are giant Spiders in the forest—”

“Spiders?” He regretted his scoff almost as soon as it had left him.

She raised her head slowly to glare at him. “Giant. As in, one of them would fill this room, giant.” He didn’t understand how that was possible. She lowered her head, eyes falling closed. “They’re the spawn of the Light-Eater, if that helps.”

It did not. “The what?”

“The Ligh— Dwarves don’t have that story?” When he shook his head, she shrugged and closed her eyes again. “Long story short, she was a sentient Spider the size of a building and she ate the light of the Two Trees. I have no idea if these are her children or grandchildren or who-even-bloody-knows, but they’re as sentient as you or I, and they know her name, so…”

“That… You’re talking about Ungoliant.”

“That’s what the Elves call her, yeah. I think we mostly call her the Light-Eater because it works better in scary stories. ‘Be back before dark, Belda, or the Light-Eater will get you!’”

He had to laugh at that, if only shortly. “Your parents scared you like that?”

Her response was icy. “Da did.” Sighing, she softened her voice. “But I was always a bit wild, so I think he used whatever tactics he could think of.”

There was silence for a few moments. They’d talked too much about things too grim for there to be any awkwardness in the waiting, but he did feel the need to prompt her, “There are giant spiders in the forest…”

“Yes, and they attacked Kíli and I.” Blush returning, she cleared her throat and went on, “We killed the ones that came after us, and then we tracked them back to their nest. It was a bit of a gamble that they’d taken all of the rest of the Company, but it paid off. I drew the Spiders off, and Kíli freed everyone. I led the Spiders back after I was sure that the Company would be ready to fight, and then I hid.”

His brows snapped down. “You left them to fight alone?!”

“Given that I was barely conscious at that point, yes!” As he gaped, she laid her head down, eyes already closed. “Anyway, the Elves showed up just after the Company finished off the Spiders—or perhaps they helped fight the Spiders; I didn’t see, so I’m not sure—and they were already taking the Company here before I could do anything to stop them.”

When she didn’t continue, he prodded gently, “And then?”

She blushed again, but this time it was angry, he thought, or at least embarrassed. “I was going to follow, and then I passed out. I woke up here a few days later.”

Incredulous, he repeated, “You passed out.”

She snapped, “I hadn’t eaten anything for two days at that point, remember, and I hadn’t slept in that time, either. And I hadn’t eaten more than a quarter of a meal a day for weeks, and I haven’t slept properly since we came into this bloody forest!” Voice lowering to a grumble, she picked sullenly at her sleeves. “Still can’t sleep properly. Still can’t relax. Still can’t let my guard down for a bloody second.”

“What? Why not?”

She looked flatly at him. “Are you forgetting we’re surrounded by Elves?” No, but he’d thought she liked weed-eaters. Evidently, she could read that in his face, as she snorted and shook her head. “First of all, Elves are too perfect all the time. It irritates me. Well, these ones aren’t as bad, but still. Secondly, even if I were inclined to like them, they’re the ones keeping my family from me, and holding my pack hostage.”

Shaking the coldness from her features like snow from her hair, she glanced at him. “They’ve never seen a Hobbit before, and they’ve never seen a female Dwarf—that they knew was female, anyway—so they’re under the impression that I’m a fifty-year-old Dwarfling.”

Distantly, he corrected, “Stripling.”

She raised a brow. “Is that the right term? Well, they don’t know that, either. And since I’m only a poor, fragile child,” the sarcastic tone fell away as easily as she’d adopted it, “they don’t see any reason to distrust me. I talked to Thranduil today, and he actually tried to manipulate me into talking to you for him.” She grinned wolfishly. “He thinks you’re my ‘Uncle Thorin’, by the way, and that we argue sometimes but get along mostly. They also think I’m Dwalin’s natural daughter, so they’ve been letting him visit me in the Healing Wing once a day. There are always Elves in the room, so we can’t really talk, but he’s a surprisingly good liar.

“We’ve decided on the story that all of us were traveling to the Iron Hills to visit family, and also to talk to the Locksmiths’ Guild there about my joining once I come of age. We weren’t planning on coming through the woods, but an unnamed Orc who has a grudge against you was chasing us, so we came in here to try and lose him and then we didn’t have any other choice but to keep going. I wasn’t a part of that conversation, by the way, it was just you and Dwalin and I was eavesdropping.

“Anyway, I got Thranduil to lead me into offering to talk to you, supposedly to argue with you until you agree that Thranduil is a perfectly nice, reasonable person, so make sure you act stubborn and belligerent when Legolas comes in to collect me.”

All he could do was gape at her.

She frowned. “What?”

He still couldn’t find any words, but she sat bolt upright abruptly, then turned to him and mouthed, _“Legolas!”_

When he still didn’t respond, she glowered at him melodramatically, gestured to her face, then at him.

He only just understood in time to arrange his features into a dark scowl before the door opened.

Belda glanced at the Elf—the same blond who’d brought her there—pleadingly. “No, five more minutes, please?”

Thorin held his glare, barely; she’d raised her voice a few pitches, and the way she was looking at him—even the way she was moving—was completely different than just a minute earlier. The Elf shook his head, but his eyes were soft as he looked at her. “Five more minutes and you’ll probably be asleep before we get back to the Healing Wing.”

She deflated, pouting slightly. “Hithlum wouldn’t like that.”

“No.” The Elf met Thorin’s eyes, but didn’t sneer at him like most of the Elves did. “Oakenshield.”

Belda suddenly threw her arms around Thorin in a hug; he returned it automatically. “Goodbye, Uncle Thorin. I’ll come back soon, I promise!”

The emotion in her voice was stunning; he’d have thought it was genuine if he hadn’t seen her change like she had.

She let go a moment later and walked to the door without looking at him; as Legolas closed the door, she glanced back at Thorin, and his breath caught in his chest to see the tears in her eyes, the grief and the longing in her face.

The door slammed shut, and Thorin let himself slump. He’d known she could act—the Troll debacle had proved that much—but he never would have thought she could do so so convincingly.

A good deal of his anxiety over his Company—over their imprisonment—evaporated. He still hated that she carried the burden of saving them, that someone so young had to bear that weight, but he had faith in her nonetheless.

If any one person could save them, it was her.

He only prayed it wouldn’t cost her everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the late update. I had a long day.  
> No notes for this one either.  
> À bientôt!


	44. Nori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elves are super gullible.

The rhythm of the guards was always something she was sure to memorize. When did they bring food, when did they change shifts, when did they patrol the cells?

She’d been in a good number of prisons sloppier than this (though never for longer than it took her to learn the rhythms), but she wasn’t sure she’d ever been somewhere less lax than the dungeons of Mirkwood.

Morning patrol, then a meal two hours later. Two hours and then the mid-morning patrol, another two hours and then another meal. One hour and then Dwalin would be taken away to visit Belda. One hour and then the early-afternoon patrol. Two hours and then the late-afternoon patrol, and another two hours before the third meal. Dwalin was almost always back by then, but sometimes he wasn’t. Two hours, after-dinner patrol, then four hours before the last patrol of the night, and then it was six hours before the morning patrol. And then it all started again.

After three weeks of the same routine, she could almost count down to the second that the Elves would walk past her cell on their patrol.

So she couldn’t help being taken off guard when the same Elves who’d been escorting Dwalin to and from visiting Belda stopped outside her cell, fifty minutes before the after-dinner patrol.

The blond looked neutrally at her. “You’re Nori, son of Dór?”

The name brought on all sorts of thoughts, but Nori put them aside for the moment. “I am. Why?”

The blond nodded to the other Elf. “Your apprentice would like to see you.”

Nori couldn’t have stopped herself from grinning if she’d tried. “I’ve been waiting to hear that for weeks.”

The pathways outside the cells were narrow enough that they would have to walk single-file until they reached a wider passage; she thought for a moment that it wouldn’t be hard to shove both Elves off the sides, but there were dozens of other Elves in earshot, if not hundreds. They’d hear and come running. Besides, the fall probably wouldn’t kill them.

The Elves escorted her back the way they’d come, which meant passing Dwalin’s cell. He was standing right at the door, surprise still fading from his features, but he smiled warmly at her as she passed. She returned it fondly, but schooled her expression once they were past. She couldn’t help but glance in on her brothers as she went, but all she could see was that they were alive and not visibly bleeding. Even so, seeing them with her own eyes for the first time in weeks was like water after a drought.

She missed them.

The blond spoke once they were out of the dungeons and the Elves were flanking her. “Whether or not Belda wishes to see you after this, if you cause trouble or harm any of the guards, you will not be allowed to see her.”

She nodded. “That’s about what Dwalin said he had to do to keep seeing her. Won’t be a problem.”

The other Elf looked down at her for a moment. “For Belda’s sake, I hope it won’t be.”

She nodded again, solemnly, but had to stifle a laugh, as they moved so the blond was in front and the other behind her. Just how many Elves had the kitten won over?

That thought, of course, brought back the ones she’d set aside earlier. First and foremost, where had Belda heard the name ‘Dór’? Nori sincerely doubted she’d been the one to tell her, no matter how close they’d been before. Dori wouldn’t have told her in any case, so that only left Ori. Well, the others said that he and Belda had been close friends before they entered the forest, so maybe it had been him. But the fact that Belda had chosen to use Nori’s mother’s name, rather than her father’s, suggested that she knew something about how little Nori wanted anything to do with him.

Or maybe it was just her way of assuring Nori that they had no idea she was no one’s son.

Either way, the kitten-burglar had also told them she was Nori’s apprentice. Despite knowing that it was probably as much a part of a scam as calling her ‘son of Dór’ was, Nori’s heart warmed at that.

At the same time, it felt incomplete, somehow. It was an odd feeling, wanting more when she didn’t even know what it was that was missing.

Dwalin had described the Healing Wing once or twice—with nothing to do, the Company’s only source of entertainment was swapping stories and hearing updates from Dwalin—as well as the way there, but if Nori wasn’t misremembering, this wasn’t the way. The halls didn’t look like he’d described, and they were going further down, not up. They passed more and more rooms with Elves at work inside, whether fletching arrows, carving wood, fletching arrows, sewing, or fletching arrows.

Clearly, arrows were in high demand.

Though, with monsters like those in their backyard, it wasn’t so surprising.

Finally, the blond stopped just past a doorway and turned to face Nori, lifting one arm in a wordless command to go through first. She narrowed her eyes at him, but glanced in. Seeing Belda, she didn’t hesitate to enter.

Belda grinned widely, seeing her, but didn’t stand from the table as Nori walked over. “‘Bout time, kitte—”

As soon as she was in reach, Belda had jumped up and thrown her arms around Nori, knocking the breath from her. (Nori ignored the fact that she was the size of a mouse, despite the weight she’d gained since their imprisonment.) Slowly, Nori wrapped her arms around the girl, an ache growing in her chest.

But the sense that something was missing eased. It didn’t disappear, but this was closer.

She wasn’t brave enough to admit what it was she wanted, even to herself.

All the same, she couldn’t stop herself from resting her chin on her k— the kitten’s head. There was something quavery in her chest as Belda tightened her hold, the ache moving up to her throat and settling there.

Dimly, she heard the door to the room close; another moment after that, a quick, quiet rumble reverberated into Nori’s chest. Turning her head so that her voice was muffled by Nori’s shirt, Belda murmured, “I told them you wouldn’t want me to have any distractions while we work.”

Fighting to speak around the lump in her throat, she murmured back, “Can they hear us?”

“They’ll be able to hear anything louder than this.” Nori only nodded in response to that, and held her a bit closer.

Slowly, Belda’s hold on her loosened; thinking that she meant to draw away, Nori drew back first, and felt her heart nearly stop as she had to catch Belda as she fell. As Nori lowered her to the bench again, heart pounding, Belda growled quietly. “Hate this. Tired all the ti—”

A yawn interrupted her. Some of Nori’s panic ebbed a bit. Crouching down to Belda’s level, she kept her voice as low. “So this is normal?”

Scrunching up her face, Belda nodded. “I’m under orders to sit down the entire time.”

Protective, guilty anger flared in Nori’s chest and she snapped, “Well, why didn’t you tell me that— I wouldn’t have kept you on your feet— Bloody—”

A quiet laugh cut her off, and the sheer warmth in Belda’s smile nearly knocked her off her feet. “I’m just a bit tired, Nori. Other than that, I’m all right, really.” She hesitated, biting her lip as she glanced at the door, but nodded to herself after a few moments. Swallowing, she met Nori’s eyes tentatively. “But there are things we need to talk about while we have the chance.”

A leaden weight lodged in Nori’s gut, but she was able to ignore it and nod. “Anything you like, kitten.”

A ghost of a smile flitted over her face. “It’s nothing too terrible. Just things I haven’t gotten the chance to say since you woke up.”

Curiosity piqued, Nori sat beside Belda on the bench, one arm around her back to support her, and leaned in so that they could keep their voices even lower.

“Before— I— well— oh, I don’t know how to start.”

“Would alphabetical or chronological be easier?”

Belda looked quizzically at her. “What?”

Idly, Nori fiddled with Belda a bit as she answered, tucking in a stray curl, smoothing out a small wrinkle on the shoulder of her tunic; she could tell that Belda hadn’t expected that at all, but she didn’t pull away— on the contrary, she leaned a bit more on Nori. “Something my Mum used to say. Whenever you don’t know how to start—or just don’t want to start—pick a category. Alphabetical, chronological, by size, by color, anything you like, and go with that.”

Realizing she was mothe— fussing like Dori, Nori stopped her fiddling, but began again a few moments later when her nerves got the better of her.

Belda laughed softly, but it was brief. Taking in a shaky breath, she nodded fractionally. “Chronological, I think. It’s not— It’s not urgent, but it— since you don’t remember— it was all settled, before, but I—” Stopping herself, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We, ah… we,” she tapped her ear pointedly; they were still speaking quietly enough that the Elves oughtn’t hear them, but Nori could well understand the need to be overcautious, “have different words for some things as you all do. And some words we share, they have different meanings when we say them.”

Voice thickening, she cleared her throat and continued, even more quietly. “About two months into the Quest, we were almost to the Misty Mountains, and you called me… You called me a halfling.”

The word was a low hiss, enough so that Nori almost didn’t catch it; she might have asked why that was a problem, but the pain and the tears in Belda’s voice… She couldn’t manage a single word.

“I know that only means…” She tapped her ear again, hand shaking. “…to you all, and probably everyone else, but to us, it means ‘half-person’. Whether that’s ‘cripple’, or ‘barren’, or s— something else, it means you’re worth less than everyone else.”

Every word struck Nori like a war-hammer; Belda pitched into her chest before she could muster any words.

“I know you don’t think that and I know you didn’t mean it when you said it, but just so you know now and you don’t say it accidentally—”

Wrapping her arms around the kitten, Nori shushed her quietly. “It’s all right, I understand. I’m sorry that happened.”

Belda shook her head, but didn’t pull away from Nori. “It was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

“Doesn’t mean you weren’t hurt.”

Belda didn’t respond to that.

After another few moments, she drew back a bit and leaned her head on Nori’s shoulder, sniffling a bit. “Then, um… well, it’s a bit complicated. You… you said something that I took badly, and I forgave you for it before we even came into the forest, but I never said that I did, and I hate that I didn’t tell you—”

“Well, I know now.” Rubbing her hand soothingly up and down Belda’s side, a pang of morbid curiosity struck her. “What was it that I said?”

Belda shook her head slightly. “It wasn’t what you said. It just… it reminded me of my mother.” Nori looked at her, puzzled, but Belda continued after only a short pause. “It was… Everyone told you I got separated from the rest of you in the Goblin Caves?”

Nori hummed an affirmative.

“While I was finding a way out… it was like I could hear her in my head. Saying I should just save myself and leave all of you to rot.” Nori blinked at her, unable to picture her ever doing such a thing. “And I realized… she always told me things like that. Always taught me to think of myself before anyone else, never to put my life on the line for anyone, not to get attached to anyone.” She scoffed bitterly. “It’s only in the last couple months I’ve realized that for her, that included me. And what you said, it wasn’t so bad on its own, but I’d only just realized that about my mother and I still hadn’t figured out how I felt about that and I wasn’t exactly thinking straight, in hindsight, and I was too harsh. And it took me too long to forgive you.”

Automatically, Nori shook her head. “Don’t apologize for needing a bit of time, kitten.” As she processed everything Belda had told her, the ache in her chest returned, and she had to stop herself from wrapping her arms around her kitten and not letting go until she was Ori’s age, at least. Letting out a slow breath, she rested her head on Belda’s again. “Did I ever mention my father to you?”

Belda squirmed a bit closer, one hand latching onto the hem of Nori’s shirt. “No. Ori told me your mother and father’s names, and that Dór was a weaver, but that’s all.”

Nori closed her eyes, trying to focus on the kitten-burglar in her arms, not on the memories that rushed back. “Well, Ori couldn’t have told you much more than that. He never knew them. Especially our father.”

She’d thought to show Belda that she understood, but the memories were choking her. Coming home to find him gone, all the fights she’d overheard between him and her Amad, how many times she and Dori had only been able to give Ori platitudes when he asked about Krovi.

She couldn’t. Ache in her chest twisting, she sighed and squeezed Belda a bit tighter. “I’m always here, anytime you want to talk, kitten, understand? Well— not always, here, but—”

Belda cut her off with a teary laugh. “I know what you mean. And I convinced the Healer who’s been tending me that being able to work toward something will help me recover, so there’ll be daily visits with you, as well as Dwalin.” She stiffened abruptly. “If— if you want— I— Well, I—”

Nori had to suppress a chuckle; Belda fell silent, relaxing. Impulsively, Nori kissed the top of her head. “I’ll see you right here tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and for as long as we’re here. Though…” She glanced at the table, the bits of metal and locks on it. “What are we meant to be doing?”

Belda chuckled. “As far as they know, I’m your locksmithing apprentice.”

Nori jolted back to look at her face. “How did you know I’m a locksmith?”

Eyes widening, Belda looked at her incredulously. “Wait, you are?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, it was Dwalin’s idea.”

Nori felt warmth fill her even as she fought a giddy grin; she hadn’t known that he’d known that.

A stifled snicker drew her attention back to Belda, whose grin was an odd mix of teasing and delight.

Cheeks heating, Nori could only manage a heatless, “Oh, shut up.”

Belda snickered at her again, but didn’t say a word, and they turned their attention to the locks on the table. As they worked, in silence apart from when Nori would mention the name of a part or tool, Nori had to tamp down a longing she wasn’t ready to address.

Parents always taught their children their craft. It was why she and Dori knew how to weave. Stubbornly, she reminded herself that Belda was Dwalin’s daughter, not hers.

An insidious part of her mind reminded her that she was Dwalin’s One, and that Belda could well be hers after the mountain was recovered and they had time for more peaceful things.

She ignored that.

And she continued teaching her kitten her craft.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

The same redhead from a week earlier moved into Kíli’s line of sight. Again, he fixed his eyes on the ceiling, instead. Some of these Elves had been baiting the Company when they brought food, daring them to attack. It wasn’t worth the effort. If that was what this Elf wanted, he’d just have to disappoint her.

“Why don’t you sleep?”

Despite himself, he glanced over, surprised. There was no mockery in the Elf’s face, no cruelty, and no laughter, either. But from the little that Dwalin had been able to explain the situation when literally anyone could be listening at literally any time, Kíli knew that Belda had been making up explanations for everything. It sounded as though she’d been sticking close to the truth, by and large, but still. Without knowing what she’d said about him, he couldn’t afford to be too detailed. So he just gave a twitch of a shrug. “Can’t.”

Her brows furrowed slightly, and she glanced at the rest of the Company. “Your companions don’t seem to have any difficulty.”

He held back a snort. Half of his ‘companions’ didn’t seem to care what Belda was doing or where she was, a quarter were satisfied with Dwalin’s (and now Nori’s) reports, and the rest had seen her for themselves.

After a few moments, she spoke again. “Is it because you’re worried about the gir— ah, Belba?”

“Belda.” He considered it for a few moments, but couldn’t see any harm in it. “She’s my friend.” And more, so much more, but he couldn’t say that, could he?

The redhead tilted her head to the side. “And yet you aren’t as demonstrative as your companions.”

This time, he let himself snort. “The way they’re behaving has nothing to do with Belda and everything to do with being unfairly, unjustly imprisoned.”

He shot a pointed glare at her on the penultimate word, but she didn’t take the bait. “My point still stands.”

His glare faltered, then faded, and he faced forward, toward the wall of his cell. “Because I know her too well.”

Her voice was as close to confused as he’d ever heard an Elf. “Excuse me?”

Sighing, he tipped his head back against the stone. “I haven’t been fighting or anything because I know Belda too well. She’d be cross with me for even thinking of it.” Closing his eyes, he tried to think of how Dwalin had described the way Belda was acting around the Elves. He couldn’t remember any details, but he’d gotten the impression that she was acting the part of the sweet, angelic girl.

Though… when he’d been a Stripling, he’d always hated to upset his Amad after Adad died. He’d been as good as he knew how to be for her for several years. It hadn’t stopped him from being a little imp when adults weren’t around. Maybe he could be a bit more truthful than Dwalin and Nori.

Though, with how much she loved Dwalin, the way she usually acted around him wasn’t so different from how he was describing her now. He didn’t think it was malicious, or even necessarily conscious, but she did tend to be sweeter with Dwalin than with Kíli.

With Kíli, she was still sweet, but that was half-buried under kindness and concern and mischief.

It wasn’t so different than how with Thorin, she was a firebrand, concern hiding under a temper as short as his and a refusal to back down from a fight.

Or how with Ori—before whatever happened between them—she was kind, but sober, and almost as feral as when she was talking with Kíli.

No, he realized slowly, she was always feral, just in different ways. Feral like a kitten with Dwalin and Nori, feral like a wolf with Thorin, feral like a snake with Ori, feral like a fox with Kíli.

So many facets.

Who knew how many he hadn’t seen yet.

The Elf’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “Do you want to see her?”

He looked sidelong at her. “Am I meant to believe that you’re offering that freely?”

Her expression tightened for a moment, but she responded calmly, “That wasn’t an offer. Only a question.”

For a few moments, he simply watched her, but he didn’t see anything in her face that would suggest that she was toying with him. He didn’t have the energy to argue further. “Of course I want to see her.”

She searched his face for a few long moments, then nodded. “What is your name?”

He huffed lightly. “I don’t see why it matters.” But he was tired of arguing, and bored of being called ‘Dwarf’, if he was called anything at all. “Kíli.” She nodded again, and moved to leave. “Elves don’t exchange names as Men do, then?”

She stopped, and for a moment, he almost thought he saw a blush on her cheeks. “I am Tauriel, Captain of the Guard.”

With that, she left. Kíli couldn’t help but chuckle, if only weakly. That had easily been the most bizarre conversation he’d had in his l—

…in the last year.

He and Fíli talked about very strange things when they were bored.

And there was another thing. He hadn’t noticed how odd Fíli was being before the spiders, couldn’t even remember if she had been odd before the spiders, but she was being odd now. And only about Belda. And he couldn’t just ask her, not with how far apart they were and not with Elves listening.

He’d have to wait until they got out of the Elves’ custody, and who knew when that would be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I am so sorry, I meant to post a chapter yesterday and that... obviously didn't happen. Also the day before. Sorry again. I'm working on chapter forty-eight right now, and starting to get worried about the size of my buffer. I've been trying to do a chapter a day to keep up, but then my nephew and one of my nieces had a Christmas program at their school and the school's an hour away and then we hung out at my sister's place for a while and then I didn't get much writing time the next day, either. Or, really, I had lots of writing time, I just didn't do much writing because chapter forty-eight is going to be INTENSE and I was a little scared to work on it. I always am, with the really important chapters, and then they turn out fine after I wring my hands and brood for a while, so we'll see how this goes. I'm not sure you're all going to think it's as intense as I'm aiming for, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to capture at least a little bit.  
> Note: So technically, the word for a Dwarven child is 'Stripling', not 'Dwarfling', which I mentioned last chapter, but I didn't know that when I started writing this and it's too late to change the first half of this now. So until I can edit everything, I'll just use both. Mostly 'Stripling'.  
> That's pretty much it, for now. I might post the next chapter today or tomorrow, to make up for missing an update, but it depends on how well the writing goes today. If my buffer stays at three chapters, so be it, but I'm not bringing it down to two if I have a choice.  
> À bientôt!


	45. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ANGST.

Belda swallowed back a snarl as Legolas narrated their progress through the halls. She’d been the one to decide to play up how helpless she was, and she knew that, and she knew how critical it was that they think her helpless, but every time they treated her like the child she was pretending to be, she wanted to snarl and bite and—

As subtly as she could, she rolled her shoulders and clenched and unclenched her free hand. She couldn’t do the exercises properly with Legolas holding one of her hands, but it would have to do. They were playing right into her hands, and her bloody instincts were trying to ruin everything.

If it had been two weeks later, she’d have been grateful for the Elves’ help, would have been able to appreciate that she was in the vicinity of a proper Hobbit weight again, that she was actually sleeping again. But it was fourteen days until her First Shift, and already, she was starting to go out of her mind. Without starvation and exhaustion to keep her grounded, every other second she had to keep herself from baring her teeth at the Elves, or running on all fours, or jumping off a walkway to try and fly away.

At the last thought, a sobering chill ran down her spine, and she held Legolas’ hand a bit tighter. As much as she wanted to rid herself of all these condescending, looming, tainted giants, she knew how that would end, and it would not end well.

But that was a problem, as well. The closer she got to her birthday, the more her instincts ruled her, the more she could sense the mark of Sauron. In the Elves, in the wooden walkways, in the doors, the windows, the wind, the shadows, the dust, and especially in the ring.

She’d found herself, lately, thinking of it as The Ring. She was fighting that as much as she could. Putting any importance in its name—not even its name, its description—would give it too much power. It was a ring, and that was all. Except that it wasn’t, of course. She doubted there was another ring in the world that carried Sauron’s mark so vividly.

She’d been able to persuade Legolas to tell her stories the night before, trying to distract herself from the urge to jump out the window and fly away from the entire bloody forest. There’d been a few short children’s stories—including one that was remarkably similar to Beorn’s history of the last dragon, at least at the beginning—but mostly, he’d told her histories. The founding of the Woodland Realm, the Sundering of the Elves, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.

He’d told her of Sauron’s attempt to take control of Middle-Earth through one ring, which he tried to use to ensnare nineteen others. Nine Men, seven Dwarves, and three Elves. Only the Men had fallen.

But a ring, a golden ring, that inspired such greed and held such a taint?

She’d barely slept the night before, knowing what was on her necklace.

She’d been able to pass it off as merely nightmares about Sauron, but that had only gotten Legolas in trouble with Hithlum and nearly derailed the scheduled move. Belda was finally getting out of the Healing Wing.

After much, much more finagling, Hithlum had agreed to let her leave as planned, but she still had to return to the Healing Wing once a day for a checkup.

But at least she wasn’t in a cell. Legolas had found her a room on the eastern side of the palace—after she’d mentioned that while she didn’t want to bother anyone, really, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep if she could hear people coming and going, he’d apparently aired out a room in a wing that hadn’t been used for several decades—where she was guaranteed privacy. It had meant giving away just how well she could hear, but at least she could be sure that no one would be monitoring her.

And there was a fairly good chance that no one would be guarding her room, either. As far as the Elves knew, she couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag, and she couldn’t remember directions to save her life. Add to that how ‘afraid’ she was of heights, and they were convinced that even if she were to leave her room on her own, she wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without them.

She’d met Losnyrn twice since the first time, and Thranduil three times in the last week alone. If anything, both of them were getting more hostile. Not outwardly—Losnyrn was just standoffish and Thranduil transparently pretended to be friendly—but their scents were growing more scornful, less amused. The faint conflict that Losnyrn had carried during that first meeting had disappeared entirely. If she had to guess, she’d say that he thought she was lying about the forest, if nothing else.

The thought made a growl build in her chest, and she was quick to suppress it. She had to find some way to deal with her instincts before they started leading her by the nose. It could only be providence that the Elves hadn’t noticed anything awry yet, but she knew better than to leave everything to providence.

But what—

…

No, that was foolhardy.

And possibly dangerous.

But… what choice did she have? The only reasons that pre-Shift instincts could be suppressed were exhaustion, sickness, starvation, or pain. She wasn’t about to hurt herself; aside from being a horrible thought, she wouldn’t be any good to her pack if she was bleeding and feverish from infection, since she knew nothing about medicine and would almost definitely catch something.

Besides, Hithlum would probably lock her in the Healing Wing if she found out.

Starving herself—other than being unthinkable, this soon after she’d almost starved to death—would be too obvious. Not to mention too slow. And Elves didn’t get sick, so that wasn’t even an option.

So that only left exhaustion. In a private room, no one would notice if she wasn’t sleeping, at least. And it would only take a day or two for her to be affected enough that her instincts should go back to manageable levels. The Elves would catch on within a few days, probably, but not being able to sleep wasn’t so terrible that they would insist she go back to the Healing Wing, probably.

Maybe.

She hoped.

“Are you all right?”

She blinked up at Legolas as she pulled herself out of her thoughts, and mustered a smile. “Yes. I was just thinking.”

He didn’t look quite convinced. “Would you like me to fetch your father? Or your uncle Nori?”

She’d have to keep the possibility of Nori staying with her in mind, but she shook her head. “No, thank you, I’m all right.”

He almost-frowned in the Elves’ way, but led her to a door, which he unlocked. “For safety’s sake, I’ll lock the door when you’re inside and when you leave.”

She bit her tongue against a frown; that would make things complicated.

He opened the door to reveal a room about the size of her bedroom in Bag-End, but painted a stark white rather than the soft yellows and beiges of most smials. If she asked, Legolas would probably call it a ‘clean’ or ‘pure’ white, but to her, it was stark. Even the Healing Wing had had more color.

Still, it had a window and a chest of drawers, and the bed had been adjusted to her height, and there was enough extra space that she could pace a bit if she needed to, and she suspected she would need to.

But still. She was going to essentially be a prisoner in her own bedroom. She said as much to Legolas (though with much less bitterness and nausea), and he grimaced faintly. “I’m sorry about that. I know it’s not ideal, but it’s the best I could do.” There was no remorse in his voice, no defensiveness, it was just a matter-of-fact statement.

Sometimes, she sort of liked Elves.

She nodded sadly. “I understand. Good night, Legolas.”

He inclined his head slightly and left. She heard the lock click, and couldn’t stop her breath from coming a bit faster. She hadn’t heard him walk away yet, so deliberately began sniffling, sounding as though she were trying not to cry.

He lingered for another few moments, then left.

Once he was out of earshot, she held on for as long as she could (thirteen seconds) before letting herself actually react.

Throwing herself back from the door, she scrambled backward until her back hit the edge of the bed, and then hid her face between her knees, hands sunk deep into her hair; the cold stone under her feet and rear and the sharp, too-high edge of the bed-frame digging into her back was all that was grounding her.

It wasn’t Bag-End, she wasn’t in Bag-End, she was in Mirkwood, she was in the Woodland Realm, she was being treated like a guest, it wasn’t Bag-End, it wasn’t, it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t—

—but the air’s stale and the dust and the smell of other and the coldcoldcold—

—it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it, wasn’t it, wasn’t it—

Breath beginning to come in gasps and half-sobs, she scrambled onto the bed to reach the window—

The window’s always locked, Longo and Camellia can’t risk any escape, any shouts, any pleading, the window’s always alwaysalwaysalways—

The window opened, and fresh air flooded over her. She hadn’t realized until then that it had been so hard to breathe. Her legs gave out, and she collapsed half-out of the window, her arms dangling down the outer wall. The lower frame dug painfully into her bust and the sides dug into her armpits, but she could breathe and that was all she cared about.

She didn’t know how long she stayed there, but it was long enough for the sunlight to disappear entirely and her arms to tingle and buzz when she drew reluctantly back. After another few minutes of standing just inside the window, the feeling came back in her arms and she couldn’t put off looking over the room any longer.

Objectively, she was aware that there was nothing wrong with it. Despite that, she had to hold herself back from throwing herself out the window.

She wasn’t actually sure she could fit through the window. Her shoulders had barely made it, and most of the weight she’d put on had gone to her hips and middle.

Alone at last, she let herself bare her teeth at that last thought. As much as she liked not being skin and bones, she hadn’t had the chance to run—or even spar—for weeks. If she didn’t find some way to stay active, she was going to be useless when they started toward Erebor again.

Breath catching, she turned and looked out the window again, this time searching the horizon. Finally, she spotted it, to the north-east. The Lonely Mountain.

More than anything, she wished they were there, already.

Tipping her head against the window frame, she let her head fall to the side so she could see the room again.

And now the conundrum.

The smell of it seemed to be worsening the longer she was inside, a stale, cold, dead, foreign flag that seemed to be waving in her face, mocking her: ‘you don’t belong here, this isn’t for you, you aren’t one of us, you’re not safe, you’re not welcome’.

But if she marked it as hers, that would be one more thing to remind her of Bag-End.

But assuming she wasn’t whisked away to the Healing Wing, she’d be living in this room for some time, and it would smell like her eventually anyway.

So, the conundrum: to mark it now and deal with the memories, or to be patient and ease into it and deal with how it set her teeth on edge in the meantime?

Groaning, she turned to face the window entirely, staring at the starlit forest. What should she do?

Even with the window open, the smell was insidious, clinging to her and only growing harder to ignore. ‘This isn’t yours, you don’t belong, you’re not safe, this isn’t for you, you’re trespassing’—

With a growl, she shoved back from the window and licked the pad of her thumb, rubbing that along the frame. It wasn’t the most efficient way of scent-marking, it wasn’t even the most long-lasting way, but what it would do was keep her occupied and keep her sated. So long as she felt she was marking and defending her territory, she at least wouldn’t be torn in half by her instincts.

It was going to take the entire night to mark the whole room, but that was alright. Even if she’d been planning to sleep, she doubted she could have. Not without waking up screaming.

* * *

 

Legolas

 

He couldn’t help but frown when he opened the door to see Belda. “Are you all right?”

She smiled wanly at him, but it didn’t lessen how tired she looked. “I didn’t sleep very well, that’s all. That story…” She shivered.

He grimaced. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“No, I asked. It’s my own fault if I shouldn’t have.”

He still thought the blame lay with him, but he didn’t have it in him to argue. “Shall we?” She took his hand, but lagged the way she did when she was troubled by something. Sure enough, when he glanced down, she was biting her lip, brow furrowed. “What is it?”

After a moment, she shook her head. “No, it’s nothing.”

But her frown didn’t fade. “Are you sure?”

She looked up at him hesitantly, biting her lip again. “I’ve already asked so much, I can’t… and so soon after the room…”

He stopped and crouched to her level, taking both of her hands in his. “Even if it is impossible, there’s no harm in asking.”

For a few moments, she only searched his face. Nodding, she told him, “I have a journal. Ori was keeping it safe for me before the… the Spiders…” She visibly shook off the thoughts of the beasts. “I haven’t asked before since I didn’t want to impose, but if I have trouble sleeping again, I think it might help to have it.”

He brightened; that, at least, he knew how to help. “I remember a journal among the items confiscated on their arrival. I can take it to your room while you’re talking to Oakenshield.”

But she bit her lip again. “I’m not sure they would like it if you were going through their things. Could we both go before I talk with Uncle Thorin? I’m sure it would only take a few minutes.”

Now he hesitated. Technically, it was a security risk. But on the other hand, she was hardly a threat—the only danger she posed was the chance that she might wander off and end up Eru-knew-where again—and it could only help her get through to Oakenshield if she was noticeably happy during it. It might even offset her obvious fatigue. “All right. No wandering off.”

She pouted as he stood. “I don’t mean to. All these hallways look the same.”

Chuckling, he squeezed her hand affectionately. “I know, little one, but all the same.”

Sighing, she nodded. “All right, I’ll stay by you the entire time.”

Thankfully, she did, and they reached the storeroom within several minutes. He watched as she searched through the shelves, finding the journal fairly quickly. But then she kept searching.

“What are you looking for?”

“My quill.” She glanced at him, eyes wide and fearful. “It’s not here!”

He frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes! I’ve been looking carefully, and it’s not here!” She inhaled sharply and turned to him. “Oh, but— Uncle Thorin always teases me about the pen being mightier than the sword, so he made my quill so that it looks like a dagger, it’s a joke— could it be with their weapons?”

That… that was a step too far. “Maybe it is here and you just haven’t found it.”

As he spoke, he moved forward to help her look, but she was right. There was no quill among the Dwarves’ things, dagger-like or otherwise.

Eventually, he admitted defeat and sat back on his heels. She looked at him pleadingly, eyes shining, and he gave up entirely. “All right. But you aren’t to touch a single weapon. I’ll hold them up for you to see and you can tell me if you recognize it.”

She beamed at him and nodded more energetically than she’d been doing anything that morning.

The storage room being used for the Dwarves’ utterly ridiculous amount of weaponry was in a different section of the Halls entirely, and it took them a handful of minutes to reach it. Just as they came within view, a familiar face prompted Legolas to pull Belda behind a corner with him.

Grimacing down at her, he murmured, “Losnyrn is inside the weapons room.”

Eyes wide, she peeked around the corner—he almost pulled her back, but she drew back after a scant second anyway—and smiled sadly up at him. “I can use another quill. It’s all right.”

He stifled a sigh. “You’re sure?”

She nodded. “He’s a bit scary. I’d rather just go and talk to Uncle Thorin, please.”

And didn’t that just sum Losnyrn up, that children and adolescents would rather spend time with Thorin bloody Oakenshield than him. Legolas nodded and took her to her uncle, but returned to the weapons area after seeing her in.

“What business do you have here?”

He looked flatly at Losnyrn. “I see no reason why I should need to explain myself, but if you must know, Belda mentioned that she has a quill that looks like a dagger. I’m curious how it was crafted.”

Losnyrn looked down his nose at him, but didn’t argue when he began looking through the shelves, examining every Belda-sized dagger he found closely. “I don’t understand why you spend so much time with the little gorn.”

Legolas stiffened at the name. “I’ve never met a hadhod before. She’s very informative.”

Losnyrn was silent for a moment. Legolas could almost hear his brow raising. “Why are you so defensive, honeg?”

Responding would only prove his point further; Legolas made a bit of a show of examining each dagger closely.

“I hope for your sake you aren’t growing attached. Eventually, she will remember that she’s a Dwarf and you’re an Elf. Whether that happens in a week or a decade, it will happen.”

He’d inspected every dagger in the room, some of them twice. Frustrated by his failure as much as Losnyrn’s words, Legolas stood to go.

Losnyrn stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Legolas. You must prepare yourself for that day.”

There was something that almost sounded like concern in Losnyrn’s voice, but Legolas didn’t let himself look. “I understand.”

Losnyrn’s grip tightened for a moment, then released. Legolas didn’t look back as he left.

Belda waved off the loss of her quill with a shaky smile, when Legolas told her, but she ran to her journal eagerly that night. The sight of her hugging it to her chest brought a smile to Legolas’ lips as he closed the door.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda let her smile fade as Legolas closed the door, and opened the journal with a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t been lying when she told him that she thought having it would help, though that had been a bit of a misdirection, as it would help her stay awake, not fall asleep.

But her guilt was for Ori. This was his journal, not hers; she thought he might not mind her claiming it, since that was the only reason she’d been able to think of that would convince Legolas to take her to where the Company’s things were. But she wasn’t sure he would forgive her for actually reading it.

And she really wasn’t sure he would forgive her for drawing in it.

But there was a roll of simple charcoals with the journal, too large to be anything but Elven, but not so large that she couldn’t use them.

Hands shaking, she moved to sit in a patch of moonlight on the bed and opened the journal.

The first page was filled with Khuzdûl runes, which she had no idea how to read, but the second page held a portrait of Thorin. She huffed out a laugh, seeing it; Ori was a better artist than she’d expected. The portrait was in charcoals, but it looked just like him. Below the picture were five runes, which made sense once she remembered that ‘th’ was a single letter in some languages. Wincing in advance, she flipped to the last page and carefully transcribed the runes there, writing the Westron equivalents under them. Thinking of how secret the language was, she took care to use one of the softer charcoals so that she could rub it out easily.

As she flipped through the journal, she found the rest of the Company’s portraits, each with their name underneath, and she transcribed them all as she found them. At Kíli’s, she had to stop and blink back tears. Now that she had her own room, her routine had changed: she still met with Thorin in the morning and ate breakfast with him, but she ate lunch in the Healing Wing after her daily check-up, then spent the afternoon with Nori in their workroom, then walked to the dungeons with Nori so that she could join Dwalin in his cell for dinner and as long as they could talk.

And since the workroom was on the opposite side of the dungeons as her room was, she passed Kíli’s cell on her way to Dwalin’s. Seeing him without being able to even speak to him, let alone touch him, was harder than she ever could have expected. It had been a struggle to even make small talk with Dwalin until her chest stopped feeling so tight.

She couldn’t think about it now. She couldn’t let herself think about it now.

Her hand shook as she wrote Kíli’s name, but at least it was legible.

But the next page was a portrait of Fíli so real that she seemed to be breathing, and the page after that was a drawing of Belda and Kíli in each other’s arms, rough sketches of him spinning her around in the corners of the page, and then her portrait, and her breath froze in her chest. She hadn’t known that Ori was drawing the Company, let alone that he would draw her, as well. But she saw the same care in his drawing of her as she saw in his portrayals of Balin and Kíli. A shuddering sob burst from her, and she had to lay the journal to the side before she stained it.

In Mirkwood, it had been bad enough, but for weeks, she hadn’t let herself think about it, and the pain was no less sharp now than it had been then. She buried her head in her hands, and she sobbed.

Ori had been her friend, as much so as Kíli, and he hated her now. She’d been right about how he’d react, how all of them would react, he hated her and they would hate her and there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing she could do.

She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t change what she was. She couldn’t avoid them finding out, not forever. She’d couldn’t isolate herself from them. She couldn’t stop caring about them. She couldn’t stop caring what they thought of her.

She couldn’t do anything.

And she was terrified that their hatred—the pain she felt now, magnified tenfold—would kill her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I finished chapter forty-eight. Still not convinced I'm going to keep my buffer up.  
> Notes: 1) Another tiny, tiny Doctor Who reference. (From Vincent and the Doctor, if that helps.) 2) Am I the only one who gets annoyed that Dwarves get the bad rap in LoTR when Men are objectively worse? Yeah, Dwarves are greedy and belligerent, so are Men! And Dwarves aren't half as weak-willed as Men tend to be! (Faramir is still my favorite character [tied with Eowyn] in LoTR, but by and large, I just don't care about the Men. Gimme Hobbits and Dwarves any day, and let the Tall Folk deal with themselves.) 3) There's a few Sindarin words here; I thought about translating them, but I feel like they'd lose a little of their impact that way. So, in order: 'gorn' is a rude term for 'Dwarf', while 'hadhod' is a respectful term (Legolas is not-so-subtly telling Losnyrn to be nice), 'honeg' means 'little brother', and yes, as it turns out, Losnyrn does have a heart. He's a massive jerk (takes after Thranduil), but family's family.  
> (^u^) À demain!


	46. Dwalin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Father-Daughter Time is very important.

His heart sank as the Elves unlocked the cell door. It hadn’t been nearly long enough for him, though he wasn’t sure anything would be long enough for him. She’d only been in his cell with him for an hour.

But the shadows under her eyes had returned, to an extent that even the Elves couldn’t fail to notice. Whenever he asked, she only said that it was strange, getting used to a new room.

He’d traded a few careful words with Nori over it, just enough to know that she didn’t know anything more than he did.

Maybe that was why they were cutting their visit short.

Legolas—he’d learned the ponce’s name at some point, he wasn’t sure when—looked flatly at him as he opened the door, then sighed and gave Belda a single nod. Immediately, she brightened and grinned at Dwalin. “I didn’t want to say in case it didn’t work out, but I asked if you could spend the night with me tonight and you can!”

Taken aback by her rapid delivery as much as what she said, he looked between her and Legolas several times before he could manage to ask, “Stay in your room?”

She nodded happily. Legolas grimaced slightly. “There isn’t room to bring in another mattress, so you’ll have to take the floor. I’ve already sent extra blankets.”

Even if Belda hadn’t clearly wanted him to agree, the idea of being able to hold his daughter, being able to talk to her frankly—she’d told him, in a much more clever way than he could have managed, that there was no chance of someone listening in, in her new room—pulled at him too much for him to do more than consider refusing.

She held his hand and chattered all the way to the room, prattling stories about ‘sleepovers’ that might have had no bearing in truth at all, for all he knew, that required nothing from him but fond smiles and the occasional ‘mmhmm’.

Even the Elves looked fond of her, though they passed a few who seemed irritated. That made sense, though; if Legolas had his pick of guards to help escort the ‘Dwarfling’, it would only make sense that he would choose from those who would be patient with her.

He did wonder if Belda could smell more than he could see, though. Were some of them lying through their teeth?

Eventually, they did reach the room, a cramped space that he wouldn’t have paid ten coins for at an inn, and Belda showed it off with the same cheer as she’d been maintaining for the entire trip. She kept talking as the door closed and locked, and for several seconds longer, then trailed off, listening intently. He might have said something, but she held up a finger as she pressed her ear to the door.

After another few seconds, all her energy drained away, and she pushed weakly off of the door to pitch into his chest. He caught her automatically, rubbing her back as she clung to him.

“It— I— Bag-End— locked— alone—” Her voice dissolved into tears as she spoke, quickly becoming impossible to understand.

Once he did, a fierce heartache lodged in his chest; he tightened his arms around her, fighting not to break down the door and take her somewhere she’d never be reminded of that Mahal-cursed place again. After a handful of minutes, though, she calmed and drew away, scrubbing roughly at her eyes. “Kit…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He caught her arm as she started to move away, falling to his knees to look her in the eye. “It does, kit! Is this why you haven’t been sleeping?”

Her expression faltered, but she shook her head firmly. She opened her mouth, but after a moment, closed it again with a sigh. Taking hold of his hand, she pulled him over to the bed and sat on the floor against it.

He sat beside her, one arm around her shoulders, and listened with growing disquiet.

“…so I have to stay awake. It’s the only way.”

He shook his head, stomach roiling. “You don’t have to do this, kit.”

“It’s the only way I can get the Company out!”

“We’ll live! We’ll be bored and our egos will be a bit deflated, but we’ll live! Our whims don’t come before your health, love.”

Her glower abruptly disappeared as her eyes filled. “Love?”

A low, wounded sound leaving him, he pulled her into a hug, which she returned. “You know I love you, kit. You know that.”  
“No, I know, it just—” She shook her head, clutching more tightly at him. “This place— I can’t— I can’t think, sometimes. I don’t know what I know.”

Closing his eyes against the fresh heartache, he bent his head down to kiss her hair. “Then know I love you.”

She nodded against his chest. For a few minutes, they stayed like that.

He couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said. The idea of a child—especially a girl-child, but any child, really—doing harm to themselves was horrible. And he’d been telling the truth—the Company would be fine—but he wasn’t sure the same held true for her. She’d let it slip that how much the room they were in reminded her of Bag-End would help her stay awake, but if just a room was enough to drive her to avoiding sleep entirely rather than risk nightmares, how much was the rest of it affecting her? How much harm was it doing her to be trapped again? To be isolated again? More than once, she’d mentioned that one of the worst parts of her family’s imprisonment of her was the time she spent without even hearing another living soul. Isolation was a good thing, in this case, but that didn’t mean it was any easier on her.

Was less harm to her now worth more harm over time?

Was getting away faster worth more harm to her now?

But how much could he decide, really? This was beyond him, talk of First Shifts and instincts and ‘long cons’. Did he have the right to make decisions about how she handled it? As her father, could he leave it to her? But it wasn’t as though she was a child, she was on the verge of adulthood, but at the same time, she was so young. She was so young and yet everything rested on her. He couldn’t put the Company—the Quest—ahead of her, but he couldn’t treat her like a child, either. He would trust her with his life, as much as he wished they would never be in that situation.

Hating himself for it already, he sighed heavily and asked, “You’re sure that it’ll help? And that it won’t be too hard on you?”

She snorted softly. “I think I’ll go insane if I don’t do it, actually. Without anyone to keep me in check or make sure I don’t forget myself…”

He shuddered. That didn’t bear thinking about. But still, she couldn’t stay awake for the next eleven days straight. “I’ll support this, if you sleep a bit while I’m here.”

She jolted back to look at him, almost affronted. “Uhdad—”

“Just for a few hours.”

She frowned at him. “One hour.”

“Three.”

“One and a half.”

“Two.” It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was better than one.

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded. “All right, two hours. But you have to wake me up after two!”

“I will.” She gave him a skeptical look; frowning, he bent down slightly to look her in the eye. “I may not like this, but when have I ever made you a promise I didn’t keep?”

For a moment, she held the expression, but she let it go with a sigh. “Never. I’m sorry. I just…”

“Don’t know what you know.” She nodded miserably; he pulled her into a tight hug, cradling the back of her head, and felt some of her tension drain away.

After a few moments, he drew away, or tried to; his hand was stuck in her hair.

Both of them let out teary laughs. “Why don’t I braid this before you sleep?”

“Uhdad, your hands!”

He would have waved off her concern if he hadn’t been so focused on extracting his hand without hurting her. “They’re fine for this. I wouldn’t try anything strenuous for another few weeks, but braiding isn’t difficult.”

She deflated a fraction, mouth twisted in a play-grimace. “To you, it isn’t. I still can’t do anything with my hair.”

Chuckling, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Well, maybe you can practice on me after you wake up.”

The way she brightened was too endearing for words, but she jumped up in another moment to rifle through the chest of drawers. “Hang on, there’s… Here!”

Holding a wide-tooth comb triumphantly, she came back over and sat between his outstretched legs with her back to him. He took the comb when she held it out, but eyed the chest of drawers contemplatively. “Sure there aren’t any brushes or something in there?”

She snorted, with far more mirth than her last laugh. “There are, but I’d rather my hair wasn’t a bush, thank you.”

He frowned. “What?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him (pulling her hair out of the way with one hand as she did) with a slight frown, then seemed to realize something. “Right, this is the first time you’ve really dealt with Hobbit hair.”

Raising an incredulous brow, he began running the comb through the bottom inch of her curls. “Is it so different from Dwarven hair?”

“Yes.” The sheer confidence in her answer was surprising, considering how little their races knew about each other, but she continued after a moment. “From what I’ve seen of all of your hair, it’s thick and it’s a bit coarse, but that’s all, right? Aside from some of you having semi-wavy hair.”

“That’s… fairly accurate, I suppose.” He ran into a tangle and had to focus on it too much to mention that Kíli had actually had curly—or semi-curly, anyway—hair when he was a Stripling. And there were stories about Dwarves who were sheared for some crime or other and their hair grew back curly, or at least wavy, until it was heavy enough to weigh itself down. It was more common in Durin’s Line, but it wasn’t unheard of in other families.

“Well, believe me, you have it easy. It’s actually rare for anyone to have hair as long as mine; most people keep it fairly short, just for time’s sake.”

“Time?”

Wryly, she asked, “How long does it take your hair to dry after it’s fully soaked?”

“Few hours or so. It’s thick.”

She snorted. “Try a full day.” Dwalin froze involuntarily. “At least mine does. It only took Da’s a few hours, but he kept his short.”

“A full…”

“Day, yeah. I try not to wash it more than once a week if I have a choice.”

“So, yesterday, when I thought you’d just washed your hair before you talked with Nori…”

“No, I washed it in the morning. It wasn’t quite a full day, I suppose; it was fully dry by dawn today and I washed it an hour or two after sunrise, but still, that’s at least twenty hours.”

Shaking his head, he chuckled and went back to combing. “So what happens if you brush it, then?”

“Think somewhere between Óin and Glóin’s hair, but about this big,” she held her hands a bit past the level of her elbows, “and still curly.”

Imagining Belda with her entire top half hidden by a mountain of hair, Dwalin couldn’t help but laugh, and she scolded through her own laughter, “Oh, you laugh, but I'm the one who had to live with my hair like that for hours until I could take a bath. Actually, Da laughed just as much, now that I think of it.”

When their laughter finally abated, it occurred to him, “Why would Hobbits even have brushes, if you don’t use them?”

“We do, just not on our heads.” She set her foot on his shin, drawing his attention to the hair there. “Very important to keep that brushed and neat, especially if we’ve been outside. You have no idea how much rubbish I had to get out of there when I first woke up. It was revolting, it really was.”

Considering she’d been barefoot all the way through Mirkwood, he had no doubt she was underplaying it. He barely held back a disgusted shudder.

Leaning forward, she carded a hand through the hair on her foot, only to comb loose a good deal of it, though it made little difference to the mass as a whole. She didn’t react; hesitantly, he asked, “Is that normal?”

She hummed a sad affirmative. “It’s September, is all. I’ll probably be shedding all the way to the mountain, assuming we get out of here before the winter coat fully comes in.”

He nodded absentmindedly, then froze. “…’Coat’? You make it sound like that’s fur.”

She gave him a confused look over her shoulder. “It is fur. What else would it be?”

He stared at her incredulously for a moment. “Hair?”

She opened her mouth, then stopped and bobbed her head to the side. “Well, I suppose if you’re not a Hobbit…”

She turned back to face forward, and he resumed combing. “So Hobbits have winter and summer coats, like dogs?”

Without looking, she reached back and smacked him on the arm, hard. “Like any animal with fur, thank you, not just mangy Man-pets.”

He huffed. “Point taken.” Leaning to the side, he added, “But I would have thought you were old enough I wouldn’t need to ask you not to hit.”

He couldn’t see her cheeks from that angle, but he could just see the tips of her ears through her hair, and those turned a dusky pink. “Sorry, Uhdad.”

It was so like the scene they’d playacted after she’d first woken in the Healing Wing that he had to chuckle. Except that this time, he was sure she was being honest. Setting aside the topic, he fought a blush of his own and asked, “How are things with Nori? You’re enjoying the time with her?”

Belda didn’t answer for a moment; when she did, her voice was thick with laughter. “Not as much as you would, I’m sure.” He let out an embarrassed hiss, but he still heard her continue, “Did you see she’s got her hair down, now?”

At that, a strangled groan escaped him, thinking of braiding Nori’s hair, but Belda only cackled.

After a few moments, she calmed enough to speak. “Things are going well.” He combed in silence for a few moments; he was almost ready to move on to the next section. “I’ve started telling her about Bag-End, actually.”

His hands stilled. “You trust her that much?”

He would bet his share of the treasure that she was smiling as she answered, “I do. I think I would have told her earlier, except I was cross with her. But it— it helps. Talking about it. Knowing that I’m not mad to think it was all completely wrong.”

“It was.”

“I know, but when you’re the only person in a crowd who thinks so, you start to wonder if it’s really the crowd that has it backwards.” Heart aching for her, he couldn’t muster any words, and just focused on combing. “I’ve been telling her about my mother, too.”

At that, he froze. She’d barely even told him about her. “Is that helping?”

When she didn’t answer, his heart nearly stopped, but after a long, long moment, she mused, “Yeah, it is. It doesn’t seem so…” She shrugged after a moment. “I don’t know. Overwhelming, maybe. And not so complicated.”

Swallowing back the bitter lump in his throat, he grumbled, “Glad she could help.”

Belda just laughed; the dagger in his heart twisted, but he’d never have expected her next words. “It’s not that you couldn’t have listened as well as she did, it’s that you aren’t enough like her!”

He felt a bit off-balance with how quickly relief erased the pain, but confusion swept swiftly in. “And Nori is?”

“Mmhmm.” He gaped at her for a few moments; the way she described her mother sounded nothing like Nori. “No, really. She’s as much a fox at heart as my mother was in truth. They don’t look alike, of course, but their mannerisms are really similar. Even the way they think is similar, except, as Nori puts it, she isn’t ‘a heartless, soulless, sorry excuse for a mother, should never have been allowed around children, let alone to bloody raise one’— she goes on for quite a while when you get her angry enough, actually, I could keep going for ten minutes.”

Grinning, he shook his head. “No need, kit. I can imagine it well enough.”

She laughed; chuckling himself, he moved to the last section of hair. “But half the reason it was so hard for me to let myself trust Nori was how much she reminded me of her. I kept expecting Nori to just be gone one day, and I didn’t even realize it until I was talking to her a few days ago.” His heartache only grew, but she reached back in an attempt at a backwards hug, voice warm. “It’s getting better, I promise.”

Smiling, he leaned forward to hug her himself; she brought her arms forward to grip his arms with a relieved sigh. “I believe you, kit. You don’t always have to try and comfort other people, you know.”

She snorted, and stretched up to kiss his beard. “I’m not doing that because I think I have to. I want to. You’re Uhdadê; I don’t want you to worry when you don’t need to.”

Sighing, he kissed her on the temple and drew back. “Are you learning much about locksmithing?”

She chuckled. “A surprising amount, actually. Apparently, there’s a lot of locksmithery involved in lockpicking. She’s been having me close my eyes and try and feel how a lock is constructed and then guess what type it is.”

He sighed. “If it wasn’t necessary…”

“Yes, I know, you’d have me be a completely law-abiding Hobbit.” She looked over her shoulder at him with a quick flash of a grin. “But just think how much safer I’d be if I knew all the tricks of the trade.”

Snorting, he ran the comb through her hair a few last times, just to check he’d caught all the problematic tangles. “Foxes, both of you.”

“Technically, we’re vixens.”

“Technically, you’re imps.”

“That, too.”

Unable to keep from grinning, he carefully sectioned her hair down the middle and used the comb to pin half out of the way while he worked.

“She hasn’t let me actually try to pick anything yet, but we’re getting closer. Thorin thinks we could escape before the month is out, but I’m not sure.”

A pang struck him at the thought of his friend. He was still angry about some of the things he said, but that was fading. As infuriating as the git could be, he was still Dwalin’s best friend. He missed him. “How is Thorin, really?”

“Grumpy. Surly. Lonely, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Desperate to get out. Desperate to punch Thranduil in the face. Definitely missing you. Worried about Fíli and Kíli. Worried about you, after I told him what you did to your hands. Really desperate to punch Thranduil in the face. Any Elf, really. Whenever he talks about them, he keeps using words in Khuzdûl I don’t know, and then refusing to translate them, like I can’t figure out that he’s cursing them to high heaven.”

Dwalin snorted. Now that sounded like Thorin. “And you two are getting along?”

She was silent for a few moments. Dwalin used the comb to keep her braid from unravelling while he worked on the other one. “Yeah. He’s still… you know. Thorin. But he apologized for what he said in the forest and explained that he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. We’ve sort of started over, now, like I have with Nori, but without the memory loss. And it… it helps. I didn’t understand him as well as I thought I did, and he didn’t understand me, either, but we’re working on it.”

“As much as you can without telling him the truth,” he finished.”

Sighing, she deflated a tad. “Yeah.” After a few moments of silence, she said sharply, “I know what you’re thinking, and no.”

He raised a brow, refusing to take the bait. “Do you?”

“Yes, you’re thinking I should tell him.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, and no, I won’t.”

“Why?”

Breath shaking, she pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. He could just picture her expression; his heart ached for her, but if he let go of her hair he’d have to start over. “Because he’ll hate me. Like Or—ri. I can’t— Uhdad, I can’t—”

Abandoning the braid, he leaned forward to pull her into his chest in a tight hug. She released a shuddering breath and clutched at his arms, but her breath steadied and she shed no tears. Once he was satisfied that she wasn’t going to break apart, he kissed her cheek and squeezed her gently. “I won’t push you, kit. But think about it, all right?”

She nodded, sniffling, and he moved his head to her other side so that he could kiss that cheek, as well. As he did, though, she squirmed away with a laugh. “Don’t do that, it tickles!”

Confused, he only watched as she lowered her hand from its protective curl around her scarred ear. It didn’t make any more sense after he understood. “Why would it tickle on this side but not that one?”

Her ears pinked as she shrugged. “It’s been more sensitive since it healed over.”

There was something she wasn’t saying, but he doubted it was so important that it couldn’t wait for another night. Shrugging, he unwound his arms from around her and picked up her braids where he’d left off; surprisingly, they’d barely unraveled. “So how are you doing? I know this is hard on you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Kit…”

“No, it’s bad enough being in here, I don’t want— thinking about it just—”

“All right, then how are you doing with your planning? I know you too well to think you don’t have any plans at all.”

That got a laugh, at least, though it was small. “Just vague things, so far. I can’t plan anything specific since I don’t know when I’ll be able to do anything and anything could change any day. But— I’ve been exploring a bit, did I mention that?”

“No, you didn’t.” As she went on, Dwalin focused on braiding the two plaits into one down her back. The braid wasn’t complicated enough to stop him from smiling fondly as she went on, as excited as he’d ever heard her.

“I can’t very often, but whenever Legolas or whatever Elf is escorting me lets go of my hand, I run and hide until they go off to look for me, then I explore ’til I’m caught. A few days ago, I found a sort of water-gate in the lowest level of the caves—there are proper caves here, did you know? All stone and everything—that’s barely guarded! They use it to bring supplies in from outside and send out the scraps, Legolas told me—”

Sudden disquiet striking him, he broke in, “You aren’t thinking of using this to escape.”

“Of course I am, the only other way out is through the main gates, and I might be able to sneak out without being seen, but I can’t sneak all of you out that way.”

One hand holding her braid securely, he sunk his head into the other, growling curses that would blister even Thorin’s ears. “You can’t swim!”

He still remembered her terror when they crossed the enchanted river, how she’d clung to him. How she’d barely breathed until he set her on solid ground again.

Her voice was hard as she turned her head away from him. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Kit, you’ll drown!”

“So you’ll go through the water-gate and I’ll go through the main gates, then!”

Silence followed her proclamation. Still half seething and half shaking, he finished her braid mutely and clasped it with his bead. He drew back, but, thinking of her earlier words, moved the braid over her shoulder so she would see it.

A broken half-sob left her, and then she turned around and pitched into his chest, clinging to his shirt as his arms wrapped around her. She tried to speak, but he couldn’t understand a word; shushing her gently, he only murmured, “Know that I love you.”

Her sobs lasted a quarter-hour before they faded. He suspected that the room had more to do with her tears than what he’d done, but he waited nonetheless. As she straightened, wiping her eyes, he leaned forward to lean his forehead against hers.

“I’m terrified of losing you, kit. The thought of you drowning—”

She shuddered. “I know. I’ll be careful.”

There was more he could have said, but the tear-tracks under her eyes only made the shadows there all the more impossible to ignore. Sighing, he chucked her gently under the chin, smiling fondly when she followed the gesture like a cat who wanted cuddles. “Sleep, kit. I’ll wake you.”

Her eyes were already drooping as she laid down with her head on his leg, but she still managed to remind him, “Two hours.”

He nodded. “Two hours.”

He was fairly sure she was asleep before he finished speaking. Still smiling, he shook his head, but studied her for a few moments in the moonlight. He’d watched her sleep so often that it wasn’t hard to see the difference the last month had made.

Her cheeks had filled out to the point that she almost looked as young as she was pretending to be. When he held her, he couldn’t feel her bones jutting out. Her wrists weren’t like twigs any longer, nor were her legs. Her collarbones weren’t like knives, and she seemed to glow, in some lights.

As much as he hated Thranduil (and by extension, his kind), he couldn’t find it in him to wish that the Elves had never found them.

A month ago, Belda might have died before they left the forest. Now she was fully recovered, to his eyes.

Of course, he’d never seen her as she should be. Even when they first met, in Hobbiton, she’d been too thin compared to the other Hobbits. She was plumper now than she had been then, but he had practically no idea what a healthy Hobbit looked like.

And there was still more to come. Assuming they could escape before Durin’s Day, there would still be long weeks of travel to Erebor, and then she would have to fight Smaug.

If he could take that from her, he would without a second’s doubt. But she was the only one of them—probably the only person in Eriador—who had a chance of coming out alive.

He didn’t know how he could watch her walk into the mountain alone, and tiny, and so, so young.

But he didn’t have a choice.

It wasn’t as though she’d listen if he asked her not to.

Or told her not to.

And she’d just escape if he tied her up.

She was so much like Nori. They’d be the death of him, he knew it already.

But for tonight, his daughter was here, and safe, and sleeping. Carefully, he picked her up and sat on the bed with her still cradled in his arms. He wasn’t going to put her down, but his rear was going numb from sitting on the stone floor. Besides, there were blankets on the bed. He didn’t want her to get sick.

Ori’s journal—she’d told him about that, though she’d called it ‘her’ journal—was within arm’s reach, thank Mahal. There wouldn’t be anything new there, but it was better than staring at the walls for the next hour and fifty minutes.

He settled in, Belda’s breathing a reassuring—if fast—rhythm against his arm and chest, and read (and remembered) how they’d begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the summary; I swear I'm getting worse at those.  
> Notes: 1) Poor Dwalin. He's a nightmare situation, he really is. 2) I ended up doing way too much research on what hair types they all have. So, I have decided: Belda has either 3A or 3B, Dwalin (most Dwarves, really) have 2A, Nori has 1C, Kíli has 2C, and Thorin and Fíli have 2B. And yeah, the curly-haired Dwarves get that from Hobbit ancestors, they just don't know it. Also, because I'm still not 100% on how these types work, what would wavy hair that holds curls really well (and curls into big ringlets if it air-dries) be? If anyone knows, I'd love to know. 3) I have the headcanon that Hobbit's 'furry' feet actually are furry, but it seems like no one else thinks that! It's so disappointing-- just think of the shedding-related humor! But I mean, really, considering that as far as we know, Hobbits don't even wear shoes in the dead of winter, it only makes sense to me that they'd have winter and summer coats to deal with the changes in seasons. 4) Did you know that I originally thought of doing a chapter of Dwalin and Belda together and thought, 'oh, that's so cute, that'll be a nice break from the angst.' NOPE. I CAN'T DO FLUFF! I would LOVE to do fluff, but NOOOO, I have to think of how their backstories would affect them or how worried they must be about such and such or whatever and then ANGST. Whatever. Based on your reactions, I think I'm at least semi-good at angst, so I'll take that. Angst is easier to write, anyway.  
> À demain!


	47. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobbits are tactile creatures.

“And… ease the pick up a bit, a bit more…” The lock clicked open, and Nori grinned at Belda. “There you are.”

Belda smiled back, but it took an effort.

“Now what’s that look for? You’re doing brilliantly.”

Sighing, Belda let herself slump on the table, head on her crossed arms. “It’s taking too long. It’ll be months before I can do anything alone at this rate.”

Nori clucked her tongue. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re learning faster than I did, that’s sure enough. And I don’t think it’ll be so long as that. Give yourself a week and you’ll be picking them twice as fast.”

Even after a fortnight, it still seemed strange to Belda to be praised so easily, but she didn’t let herself squirm. She and Nori had talked about it any number of times; the only thing that would ease it was time.

“‘Sides, it’s not the end of the world if it takes a bit of time. You’re doing better than I could, with a long con. Never was much of a grifter, me. Prefer being a thief. You’re a born hustler, though.”

Swallowing thickly, she managed a tiny shake of her head.

Nori stilled, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Kitten?”

Shaking her head again, Belda croaked, “Not born. I learned.”

Nori’s hand left her shoulder, but she scooted closer on the bench until their sides were pressed together, and she began fiddling with one of the locks on the table, making just enough noise to cover any slips Belda made, whether from anger or pain or grief. They’d formed the routine naturally over the course of weeks, but it was a comfort, now. Even simply leaning against her helped Belda ground herself in the present, keeping her detached from the memories that inevitably rushed back as she spoke. Nori’s hair helped, as well, brushing against Belda’s cheek and reminding her of who was with her by the mere fact of its existence. Hobbits never had hair so straight.

Sniffling, breath shaky, she began. “Bagginses are respectable, and proper, and always have the best manners. It’s a matter of pride for some of them that they can keep their manners intact even when their scents are shouting that all they want to do is curse you to high heaven. And I— My Da never tried to make me do that. He taught me manners, but he taught me Took manners, where honesty is more important than appearances. And then— then Camellia and Longo—

“I… I think I might have given Dwalin the wrong impression. Everyone, really, but mostly Dwalin. I think I made it sound like I was a prisoner for the entire time that Camellia and Longo had me. But they let me out, sometimes. If I was ‘good’ and ‘behaved myself’, they’d let me out. I’d take meals with them, and help Camellia cook, and go to the market with Longo, and go to tea at other Baggins’ smials. So long as I did everything right.

“If I messed up, cooking—which wasn’t exactly uncommon; I’m a rubbish cook—then I couldn’t eat that meal. If I left Longo’s sight at the market, I’d be confined to Bag-End until the next market trip. If I let something slip to someone at tea, or if my manners weren’t ‘proper’ enough, I’d go straight to my room, and stay there until they decided I’d had enough.”

She laughed quietly—though it stuck in her throat and came out more like a sob—even as Nori—whose scent was as horrified as Dwalin’s ever was, hearing about her life for the last decade—put a careful, deliberate arm around her. “I made it four whole months without being locked in anywhere a couple years ago. I was ready to crawl out of my skin at the end, it was a relief to run away while Longo was haggling. To run under the sun. I made it halfway to Tuckborough before they caught me.”

Another sob caught in her throat. “But now I’m crawling out of my skin again, I’m stuck being a ‘good Baggins’ again, and I can’t run away, I can’t— I—”

“Hey, shh.” Before Belda could so much as wipe her eyes, she was pulled into Nori’s arms. The kindness of it—and the compassion in Nori’s scent—tipped her over the edge, and she had to burrow into Nori’s chest to try and muffle her tears. One of Nori’s hands curled around her neck, the heel of her palm pressing against the nape of Belda's neck—though she thought Nori was trying to avoid touching her hair—and the pressure was almost as comforting as Nori’s warmth as it surrounded Belda. “You’re safe, love, and this won’t last forever. Thranduil’ll let us go, or Thorin’ll make a deal, or we’ll escape, but whichever it is, we’ll make it out and this will end. And if anyone lays a finger on you, you just whistle, I’ll be there.”

Despite herself, Belda laughed weakly. “You’re locked up most of the time.”

“What, you think I’ll let that stop me? I haven’t taught you anywhere near everything I know yet, love, and I can think of a way or two I could get out if you needed me.”

Frowning, Belda drew back just far enough to look her in the eye. “Then why haven’t you escaped?”

Nori sighed, scent as sorrowful as it was compassionate. “Why do you think, kit? You need me here,” she chucked her gently under the chin, and Belda couldn’t help but smile, “and Dwalin needs me here, and Dori and Ori might not like my methods, but they need me, too. Maybe the whole Company doesn’t, but enough do that I’m staying right where I am.”

Belda moved forward again, resuming the hug, and Nori returned it with a flare of possessive pride in her scent that was almost like the way Dwalin smelled sometimes, but Belda still didn’t really understand it. But even as part of her—as always—did her best to memorize how it felt, to be in her arms, she still couldn’t completely relax.

Part of her knew that this was Nori, Nori never lied, and even after losing her memory, she hadn’t changed a bit. She was still trustworthy.

But another part of her knew that this wouldn’t last, it couldn’t, it never did. Even Fíli had pulled away from Belda in the last few days before they were captured. Nori would, too, in time.

So, closing her eyes, Belda focused on the hug, and she wondered if this was how mothers were supposed to be.

Slowly, trepidation and fear entered Nori’s scent, slowly enough that it couldn’t be based on any outside influence. Belda frowned, concerned, but kept her eyes closed, and when Nori quietly began to speak, Belda listened.

“Amadê was a weaver, but she’d been a princess, once. Princesses, especially when they’re the only unwed lasses in the royal family of a new-forged kingdom, don’t always get to choose who they marry. Sigin’amadê was lucky. Amadê wasn’t. Krovi… all he saw in Amadê was the royal coffers.” With genuine hatred in her scent, she muttered, “It’s Dwarves like him that give all of us a bad name.”

But she took a deep breath and the hatred ebbed, somewhat. “When the family was banished, he stayed with his wife and son, Mahal knows why. Personally, I think Sigin’amad must have strong-armed him into staying. But when Amadê died, Krovi left. He didn’t leave a note, didn’t leave any money, not even enough for Amad’s funeral.”

The anger in Nori’s voice and scent would have been overwhelming if grief hadn’t balanced it. Hesitantly, Belda asked, “How old were you?”

Her mother would have scolded her for interrupting, but Nori rested her chin on Belda’s hair and just tightened her grip on her a bit. “I was a few weeks shy of fifty-one. Dori was ninety-five. Ori was only a year old. Between Amad and Dori, we’d been making just enough that Krovi didn’t have to work, and he didn’t. I’d already been stealing, by then, just to make ends meet. Sometimes… I can’t help but wonder, if I’d… if I’d kept on the right side of the law, would he have had to work? It wouldn’t have changed who he was, and we might have been even worse off without me keeping us afloat after he left, but I still wonder.

“But when it was just Dori, Ori, and me, there were nights that Dori and I didn’t eat. There were times when I went a bit too far and we got chased out of town. There were times when we were in between towns and we had to sleep outside, without any of the supplies that the Company has now. I thought about leaving them, more than once. I thought about going off on my own, making a life for myself, keeping my earnings to myself. I couldn’t do it any more than you could leave your Adad and us.”

Deliberately, Nori drew back to look Belda in the eye, the hand not still on her neck holding her chin so that she couldn’t look away. “I’m not saying this is going to be easy on you, kitten, Eru knows you’ve had a hard enough go of it already and it’s only going to get harder for the next bit, but you’ve got twice the strength as I did. You’ve got twice the heart as I’ve ever had. So if I managed it, so will you, if you keep your chin up.” She chucked Belda’s chin again, but her eyes and scent were sober. “I wish I could tell you you can be done if you like, but we’re already in the middle, kit. There’s nowhere to go but forward. But I know you can do this.”

The sheer faith in her voice—in her eyes, in her scent, in her face—was so disconcerting that Belda’s stomach flipped. That wasn’t right, that wasn’t what she was supposed to say, she was supposed to say that Belda was decent enough, that Belda would be fine, if she didn’t screw it up, if she didn’t lose her head, if she was a Took, if she was a fox, if she didn’t let short-sighted sentiment get in the way—

But that was never what Nori said, Nori didn’t— but Nori was just like— but she wasn’t like her, she wasn’t, and neither was Belda, but she still—

Dizzy from how her mind was whirling, Belda lunged forward to hug Nori again, fresh tears springing up.

Nori hugged her back, as tightly as Belda was holding her, and they stayed like that until the door opened and the scent of embarrassed shock flooded the room from the doorway.

Biting back a frustrated growl, Belda sighed and wiped her eyes, meeting Nori’s for just long enough for the thief to mouth, in Khuzdûl, _‘Chin up, go forward.’_

Keeping her back to the door, Belda gave a tiny nod, jaw set, before putting on her mask again. Turning to the Elves, she feigned surprise, though her confusion wasn’t false. “Where’s Legolas?”

Tauriel—Belda was fairly sure that was her name; she hadn’t interacted much with her—only said, “Occupied with personal matters. Are you finished here?”

Glancing sadly back at Nori, Belda nodded.

“Very well. Come along.”

Irritation flared in Nori’s scent at their both being treated like a child, but she didn’t say a word. Belda made up for that.

 

Belda’s chatter died off as they neared the dungeons. Nori looped an arm around her shoulders in a half-hug. “It’s only ’til tomorrow, kit.”

With the Elves listening, Belda couldn’t correct her. It wasn’t saying goodbye to her that had her heart in her throat.

But regardless, Belda leaned her head against Nori’s side and nodded, a sad smile on her lips.

Usually, Legolas unlocked Dwalin’s cell while Lethuin unlocked Nori’s, so Belda kept moving past Kíli’s without time for more than a glance at him.

But Tauriel stopped them both as Lethuin ushered Nori into her cell, stopped them directly in front of Kíli.

Belda couldn’t look away from him. Eyes burning, throat tight, breathing shaking, she couldn’t look away from him.

He wasn’t quite at the bars, but he was leaning so far toward her on his bench that he looked as though he’d slide off at any moment. From his stricken, desperate expression, she wasn’t sure he’d notice. Usually, she walked past so quickly that she couldn’t make out any of his scent, but now…

Now she could make out the pain, and the longing, and the worry and the fear and the relief and still more, all mixed together so thickly that she could barely make any of them out, and it only made her own heartache worse, but she still couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.

It was all she could do not to run to him, to try and touch him through the bars, even if all they could do was hold hands. Some Hobbits called Mates ‘Heartmates’, and now she knew why.

She felt as though her heart had been torn from her chest. She was sure that her heart was behind those bars. He’d had it for months.

Even if he didn’t know it.

An instant before she would have given in and run to him—and just as the tension and the dread and the anticipation in his scent grew to the point that she thought he’d move before she did—Nori’s cell door closed with a metallic _crash_. Belda couldn’t help but jump, glancing toward it automatically with a sharp inhale, but she looked back to him just as quickly. He was still staring at her as though she was all that mattered. The same way she was looking at him.

“Come along.”

Tauriel’s voice was almost as unexpected as the door, but Belda managed not to jump, or to sob, or to do anything but pull up enough of a mask to seem as though she were only upset at seeing a friend.

She talked and ate with Dwalin as usual, but as Tauriel walked her back to her room later that night, she couldn’t remember a word either of them had said, or the taste of anything she’d eaten.

“Who is he?”

Belda startled slightly, but not overmuch. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure who you mean.”

Tauriel glanced at her, expression unreadable but scent curious. “The Dwarf you were staring at.”

Carefully, she answered, “His name’s Kíli.”

With a small shake of her head, Tauriel amended, “Who is he to you. You clearly know each other.”

A sob caught in Belda’s throat as she looked at the floor ahead of them, but she was able to tamp it down to nothing more than a hitch in her breath. “He’s my friend.”

Tauriel’s scent turned skeptical. “I don’t claim to be an expert on such things, but I don’t believe friends typically look at each other that way.”

“What way?” Belda barely held back a wince; that retort was far too much like herself, and out of character for the persona she’d created.

But Tauriel didn’t seem to notice, tilting her head to the side as she looked thoughtfully down at Belda. “…I can’t think of any words to do it justice.”

Belda couldn’t help a blush—had they been that transparent?—but clearly, denying it was useless. Bits and pieces of the truth, then. “We— You can’t tell anyone, it’s secret!”

Tauriel inclined her head. “So long as it does not threaten the Woodland Realm or any of its inhabitants, it’s a secret I will keep.”

Belda was satisfied with that, but kept her eyes narrowed for a few moments further; she didn’t have to feign the heat that flooded her cheeks. “We’re betrothed. Sort of— I’m not of age, and he’s barely of age, so it won’t be for years yet, but it was decided years and years ago by our families, but it’s—”

“A secret,” Tauriel nodded. She seemed less… ageless than most of the other Elves. Belda wondered if she was the young one who Hithlum had mentioned.

Belda nodded, as well, morosely. “He’s a prince, and I’m only an apprentice locksmith. Politics make everything more complicated.”

An odd tangle of emotions flitted through Tauriel’s scent, but it passed quickly, leaving only resignation in its wake. “They do.”

* * *

 

Tauriel

 

The Halls were generally quiet at night, but the Queen’s Wing was almost eerily silent. Tauriel could easily see why Legolas had placed Belda here, if her sleep was so fragile.

But she had an obligation to see out. Perhaps obligation was the wrong word; she hadn’t made Kíli any promises. But she’d decided then to see that he could at least talk with Belda, if not have an official visit. If he’d been as troublesome as some of the others, she might have managed it, but other than ignoring any orders given to him, he was among the more manageable, and the king had declined to consider Tauriel’s request.

But with the way they’d looked at each other combined with the fact that neither of them were sleeping (and with what Belda had said and close it had struck to home, ‘he’s a prince and I’m only…’), Tauriel couldn’t see how it could do anything but harm to keep them apart. She couldn’t arrange for them to meet in the daylight, but she could do this.

As she neared the room, she listened carefully; all she heard was quiet, even breathing, likely in sleep. As quietly as she was able, she unlocked the door, relieved when the breathing inside didn’t falter.

“What are you doing?”

…But evidently that was because she’d already been awake, not that she was still asleep. Suppressing a light flush, Tauriel opened the door and stepped inside with no more caution than she would use in daylight. Belda was sitting on her bed with her back against the wall, looking up at Tauriel curiously. “I did not wake you?”

Her mouth tightened in a half-grimace. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Tauriel nodded once, then hesitated. She couldn’t think of how to say it. Shaking her head slightly, she held out a hand. “Come along.”

Belda looked at her hand for a moment, then met her eyes again, tilting her head to the side. “Why?”

There was a weight behind the question that belied her age, and Tauriel considered it carefully. “Elves… We don’t change, generally. Over decades and centuries, time affects us little. I think some of us forget how much impact it has on mortals.”

It wasn’t much of an explanation, she knew, but Belda scooted off the bed and took her hand anyway. “You’re very young, for an Elf, aren’t you?”

As they walked into the hallway and toward the dungeons, Tauriel looked at her sidelong. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re more impatient than the others.”

Tauriel had to hold back a laugh, at that.

Belda grinned at her. “And you actually react to things. You don’t treat everything like you’ve seen it a hundred times before.”

“Most of them have.”

“Exactly.”

The two of them grinned at each other for a few moments, though Tauriel was a bit surprised by the kinship she felt for the little creature. It was an extension of what she’d felt earlier (‘and I’m only…’), but all the same, she couldn’t think of another time she’d so quickly grown to like someone, save for when she met Legolas.

Now she understood why he was so attached to Belda.

The rest of the journey passed in comfortable silence, though Tauriel did gesture for Belda to stay quiet when they reached the dungeons. The same tension Tauriel had seen earlier returned as they neared Kíli’s cell, and the Dwarf himself only spared an indifferent glance for her as she moved into view of him before he closed his eyes again.

Biting back a half-smile at the thought of what she was about to do, she gestured for Belda to move past Kíli’s cell; Belda did so with near-tangible reluctance, eyes fixed on Kíli. Even after she moved past Tauriel, she stayed where she could see him, staring at him as though she was in a desert and he was an oasis.

Turning away from her, Tauriel set the key in the lock—Kíli’s brow furrowed—turned it—he looked quizzically at Tauriel—and opened the door.

She’d barely pulled it open far enough for Belda to fit through before she ran forward and launched herself at Kíli, throwing her arms around his neck.

He bent to her level without changing his expression from shocked disbelief, but then his expression broke, and Tauriel looked to the side to give them a bit of privacy.

Even out of the corner of her eye, though, she could see how he seemed to enfold her as his arms wrapped around her, one hand settling on the center of her back, the other on her waist. A faint sob reached Tauriel, but she couldn’t tell whose it was.

Despite Belda’s comment about politics, Tauriel had wondered if it was an arranged match, as she knew Men did such. But whether it was or not, she had no doubt that there was some regard between them.

After several long moments, Kíli let loose a shuddering breath. “Mahal, Belda. Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

Idly, Tauriel wondered who Mahal was—though he was probably some Dwarf from long ago—as Belda answered, in a high, thick voice that nevertheless managed to stay as quiet as his, “Almost starve to death? So tempting.”

Tauriel’s mouth quirked into a tiny smile at the sarcasm as Kíli barked out a wet laugh. “Tennur Tauron, Belda, I wish…”

Laughing despite the tears in her tone, Belda drew back just enough to press her forehead against Kíli’s, her hands still around his neck. “Fætur Eldfreyja,” she teased, or was she flirting? “You’ve been paying attention.”

He shifted his weight, relaxing his grip on her enough to clasp his hands loosely at the small of her back; Tauriel turned her head to the side, something in the way they were standing and how she could hear a smile in his voice making her uncomfortable. “I always pay attention to you.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s my favorite braid?”

“Dwalin’s mohawk, obviously.”

She groaned theatrically. “You know me so well.” Both of them laughed at that, quietly, and stood in silence for several moments more.

Eventually, though she felt wretched, Tauriel had to interrupt their moment. “There’s only so long before the next patrol. We should be going.”

Both of them tensed at her voice, grips on each other tightening. Tears in her voice again, Belda murmured rapidly, “You’d better sleep, and make sure you’re eating enough, and if you get yourself hurt, Kíli, so help me—”

A quiet laugh from him cut her off, and he slid his hands to her waist. “That goes double for you, you know.”

One of her hands fell to his chest, his heart; there was no mirth in her voice when she answered. “I know.”

Both of them breathing shakily, they drew slowly, reluctantly apart; just as Tauriel was about to speak again, Belda turned away from him with a strangled sob and slipped out of the cell. Even as Tauriel relocked it, though, they were standing as close as they could again, her with her arms through the bars and her hands framing his face. His arms couldn’t fit through the bars—Tauriel had seen more than one of them trying to reach through just after their arrival, and the result never changed—so instead he had his hands on hers. Both of them were leaning their heads against the bars as though they could feel the other through them, holding each other’s eyes as though they thought they’d never see each other again.

A guilty weight in her chest, Tauriel quietly prompted, “Belda.”

As reluctantly as they’d drawn apart before, they seemed doubly reluctant the second time, and even when Tauriel and Belda began walking away, the Dwarfling kept her eyes on him until he was out of sight; Tauriel had to keep ahold of her arm to make sure she didn’t walk into a wall while she was looking back.

Tauriel knew the layout of the Halls well, and almost could have counted down to the moment that Belda twisted around to face forward with a bitten-off sob.

Neither of them said a word until they reached her room.

“Why?” Tauriel stilled; tears still thick in her voice, Belda repeated, “Why? Why would you do something like that?”

Looking at her, Tauriel weighed the risks. But the wing was abandoned. No one would hear. Decision made, she murmured, “Because the king is wrong to keep you apart. I do not have the authority to challenge his decree, but I could give you that much. But…” She hesitated, but told her gently, “I can’t risk it again. Not for several weeks, at least. The consequences would be severe, for all of us involved.”

Belda’s expression tightened, but she nodded. When Tauriel opened the door, she slipped inside without a word, but as Tauriel began to close the door, she turned to her. “Tauriel? Thank you.”

Sorrow heavy in her chest, Tauriel inclined her head in mute acknowledgement and closed the door completely. Locking it, she took a moment to gather herself before leaving the wing.

She had work to do, starting with finding out how Thranduil had punished Legolas for not stemming the Dwarves’ assaults on the guards. It wasn’t likely to be severe, given that they were Dwarves, and there was only so much anyone could do, but even so.

The king could be a harsh man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure I'm either going to get happy comments or angry comments for this chapter. Honestly not sure which.  
> Notes: 1) 'Amadê' is 'my mother', as should be obvious. 'Sigin'amadê' is 'my grandmother', which might not be obvious. 2) Nori's lines about 'going forward' are loosely inspired by something book!Bilbo says to himself in the Goblin Caves before he meets Gollum: 'Go back? No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!'. Have I mentioned Tolkien was an amazing writer? 3) I'm realizing more and more that I'm horrible at writing Elves. I love reading stories about Elves/fairies/fae and how inhuman they are, but I can't write them to save my life. It's that whole blue/yellow morality thing. I can't do it. Which doesn't really apply to Tolkien!Elves, but still. 4) I haven't decided yet if I ship Legolas/Tauriel. I like them as friends, but in the movies, she's definitely interested in him (just look at how crestfallen she looks when Thranduil tells her of course he won't let them be together), even if he has the personality of wet cardboard in the Hobbit trilogy. He has a little more personality in the LoTR trilogy, but still not as much as I remember in the books. I don't know, maybe I'm remembering wrong, but to me, he's just kind of boring in DoS. Anyway, canon!Tauriel is definitely into him, so I have a few hints of that in here.  
> À demain!


	48. Hithlum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now things are picking up. *grins*

Hithlum couldn’t quite banish a frown as she examined Belda, idly noting that she’d trimmed her nails down to the quick. Her appetite had finally leveled off five days prior, and Belda assured her that she was now a healthy weight for her race, but judging by the bags under her eyes, she still wasn’t sleeping enough.

Shaking her head, she chided, “I’m beginning to think clearing you to stay elsewhere was a mistake. Perhaps it would be for the best if you returned to the Healing Wing.”

Belda’s eyes widened; Hithlum narrowed hers and tried to remember if Belda’s pupils had been quite that narrow six weeks earlier. Female Dwarves were strange. “Please, Hithlum, I just got used to having my own room again!”

“If you aren’t sleeping—”

“It’s getting easier!”

“I don’t see any evidence of that.”

“I know, but it is, I promise!” Face falling, Belda looked pleadingly up at her. “At least just one more night, Hithlum, please. I like my room.”

For a few moments, Hithlum held her ground, but she could only last so long in the face of such sincerity. “You’re warmer than usual. I’m going to give you a dose of fever remedy and a sleep aid. You’ll take both, and if you’ve improved after that, we’ll discuss whether you can return to your room.”

“Wait— I have to take them here?” At Hithlum’s nod, Belda grew even more distressed. “No, please, I’ll sleep better in my room, really! I can come back later for another check-up!”

Hithlum looked skeptically at her, but if the thought of staying in the Healing Wing was causing such distress, forcing her to stay could only worsen her condition. Sighing, she gave in. “Very well. But you,” addressing the guard who’d brought Belda, Gobennas, “will stay outside her room in case of emergency.”

“Hithlum!”

She shot a sharp glare at Belda, and the girl immediately deflated. “I’m sorry, Belda, but there’ll be no visits today. Just focus on sleeping.”

She nodded, head hanging, and left with Gobennas. Hithlum turned back to her work, and tried to shove down the knot of worry in her gut.

It was only one afternoon.

* * *

 

Gobennas

 

The girl’s hand wasn’t warm in his, far from it. He did like her well enough, and he respected Hithlum greatly, but he had to wonder if she wasn’t overreacting, just a bit. But he was careful to keep his expression clear of any impatience.

As they neared her door, she tugged lightly on his hand, and he met her eyes. “Do you really have to stay?”

Biting his tongue against his true thoughts, he only responded, “Hithlum has ordered it.”

He let go of her hand in order to unlock the door; she moved to stand beside it, still looking earnestly up at him. “I’m sure she only wanted you to make sure I take the potions, and I will, I promise. I doubt she meant for you to just stand here the entire time.”

“She said, ‘in case of emergency’.” The door unlocked with a click, but the girl didn’t move.

“Yes, but what emergency could there be? This isn’t the first time I’ve taken one of her potions, and nothing went wrong then.”

A pang of uncertainty, mixed with hope, struck him. “It isn’t?”

She shook her head, smiling. “I was in the Healing Wing for ages. You remember— you brought my father there once, with Legolas.”

Now there was someone Gobennas wanted to see. If he could have, he would have asked Legolas what to do here, but the king had seen fit to send the prince on a week-long patrol of the borders, as he’d been ‘neglecting his duties’, being so busy with the Dwarves. He wouldn’t be back for another day. The prince may have been young, but he was wiser in some things than Gobennas had ever been.

“If you’d come there more often, you would have seen: she gave me things like these once or twice a week, usually. When I didn’t need them, that’s when she said I could have my own room. So I’m sure nothing will go wrong. And I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Why do you care about my time?”

“Truthfully?” She grimaced slightly. “I just don’t like the idea of someone listening to me sleep.” She shuddered, nose wrinkled; Gobennas couldn’t actually say he disagreed. “So since we know there won’t be an emergency, and since I’m not having any visits today, and I’m sure I’ll sleep straight through lunch, I don’t see why you really need to be here until it’s time to take me back to the Healing Wing.” Smiling playfully, she mock-whispered, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

He raised his brows a fraction. “And if Hithlum asks me how you slept?”

“I’ll tell you on the way there. It’s a long enough walk that we’ll have plenty of time.”

She had a point there. And she had a point that he wouldn’t really need to be there until the evening. His conscience gave a token protest, but he ignored it. “All right. I’ll be back at dinner-time.”

She beamed at him. “I’ll see you then! Unless I’m still asleep, which I might be, since I don’t know how strong she made this one.”

He couldn’t help a small laugh, and she echoed it. Opening the door for her, he waited for her to slip through, then closed and locked it. Last he heard, Elros and Galion still had hangovers from the feast two days before. Whatever they’d been drinking, he wanted some.

* * *

 

Belda

 

She barely held herself still until she was sure he was out of earshot; it was more difficult to tell than usual, since she could barely hear anything over her heart pounding.

The instant that she was sure it was safe, she shoved back from the door, hands already slipping inside her shirt to claw at her shoulder blades. She didn’t have wings, her wings weren’t there, they weren’t there, they weren’t there, but she could feel them, feel them moving, stretching, straining—

A low, keening whine fell from her lips as her hands reopened scratches that had only just scabbed over, and the pain didn’t help and the blood didn’t help and all it was doing was making things worse, but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop scratching, pacing, stalking around the room, around her territory—

She tripped and fell as she overcompensated for a tail that wasn’t there; without her hands to catch her, she had to twist to land on her side instead of her face. It still hurt, but the pain faded quickly. Beorn had said there were legends of predator-Hobbits—and fighting-prey, especially bears—being so quick to heal—quick to fight quick to strike quick quickquickquick—just before and during their First Shift that they tore apart entire armies if given the chance. Now she understood that, but she couldn’t stay focused on that thought for more than a few seconds.

Her heart was too fast and too loud and her mind was too loud and too fast and everything was too, too too tootoo **too —**

—too much too loud too fast too big too much too much—

—stopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstop **stop** —

—and she couldn’t stay still, had to move, had to movepacewalkrunanythinganything **anything** —

—stopstopstopstopjuststoppleasestoppleasepleasepleasestopstopstopstop—

—and all she could think about was outside—

—sun air rain sunsunsun soil air trees leaves sunsunsunsun scents air air sun sun air—

—can’tbreathecan’tbreathecan’tbreathecan’tbreathecan’tbreathe **can’tbreathe** —

—and she knew she couldn’t go outside, had to stay in, had to lie, had to protect the pack—

—protectthepacksavethepacksavethemsavethem **savethem** —

—can’tbreathecan’tbreathestopstopstopstopstoppleasepleaseplease **please** —

—had to play Baggins had to play good play nice nicegoodnicekindgoodnice—

—can’tbreathecan’tbreathepleaseplease **please** —

—couldn’t let them down, couldn’t leave them, couldn’t fail, couldn’t fall short—

—pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease—

—had to be alone, had to protect them—

—NoriNoriNoriNoriNoriNori—

—couldn’t tell Nori—

—hatehatehatehateshe'llhatemenononononononononono—

—couldn’t tell Kíli—

—nononononopleaseplease **please** nonononononononono—

—couldn’t tell anyone—

—pleasepleasepleasepleaseanyoneanyonehelpme **helpme** helpmehelpmeplease **please** —

—alonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealone—

—sunsunsunsunairsunsunsunairsunairsunairairairairaircan’tbreathecan’tbreathecan’tbreathe—

On and on and on—ononononononon—she paced around the room, fingers digging into where her wings should be—nottherenotthere **notthere** —the pain doing nothing to help her stay sane. Whenever her path crossed the patch of sunlight as it inched across the room, a shiver of—yesyestherethatthathatpleasepleasepleasethat—yearning ran down her spine in a parody of what she knew she would feel if she were actually outside.

—outoutouttrappedcageprisonroomnonononononononooutoutoutoutoutoutout—

More than once, she had to shove to her feet again when she realized she’d been crawling, forgetting that she was bipedal.

More than once, she had to dig her hands in her hair to try and keep from clawing herself bloody, or bloodier.

More than once, she had to let herself give in to the itch under her wings to keep from throwing herself out the window.

If she could have, she would have read Ori’s journal again—after so many sleepless nights, she wasn’t fluent, reading Khuzdûl, but she got by—but she couldn’t even stay focused on the idea for more than a split second.

Every nerve on edge, it only took a single footstep at the edge of her hearing to catch her attention.

—nononononotooearlynotenoughtimenotenoughnonononononono—

Heart pounding, she moved to the bowl of wash water, already stained pink from that morning, and scrubbed off the blood from her fingers. There couldn’t be any evidence of what she’d been doing, not if she wanted to get out that night—

—outoutoutoutoutoutoutoutpleasepleasepleasepleasepleasehelpmehelpmeanyone—

—which she had to; if she shifted inside the palace, either she or it would be smashed to pieces, and she didn’t have a choice anyway, because she could feel the outside calling her, pulling her, drawing her—

—sunsunsunairsoilairfreefreefreefree **free** —

—and she could only resist that so long. There was a reason the party in the Shire would have been held outside.

Finally wiping her hands off to see no trace of red, she tucked her tunic into her skirt again and fixed her appearance as best she could in the mirror. As she did, she took deliberately slow breaths, trying to slow her heart from the frantic gallop that was becoming almost normal to her. She didn’t think she was completely successful—

—stopstopstoppleasestopstoppleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasestopstopstop—

—but when Gobennas opened the door, he didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.

—pleasehelpmehelpmehelpmeanyoneanyonemakeitstopmakeitstop **makeitstop** —

“The king has requested that you take dinner with Thorin Oakenshield.”

—nonononononocan’ttellhimcan’ttellhatehatehatehatehatenononononopleasenonono—

She nodded, eyes wide. “All right, but— is something wrong? I don’t usually eat with Uncle Thorin.”

—can’ttellhimcan’tcan’tcan’tcan’tbreathecan’tbreathecan’tfailcan’tfailhelphelphelpmeplease—

Gobennas’ jaw tightened, but he shook his head slightly. “Nothing is wrong. Did you sleep?”

—sleepsleeppleasepleasesleeppleasesleepsleepsleeppleasemakeitstopstopstopstop—

She walked out of the room, careful to keep her motions a tad lethargic. “For a while. I just woke up a few minutes ago. It’s dinner time?”

—stopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstoppleasepleasepleasehelpstopstopstop—

He nodded. “Just before, but close enough. We should arrive as your food does.”

—stopstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstop—

“I’m not sure how much I’ll eat. I never have too much of an appetite just after I wake up.”

—lielielielielielielieliarliarliarliarliarliarliarliarliarselfishwasteliarliarliarliarliarliarlielielielielie—

“Are you sure?”

—notlyingnotlyingnothungrynotthirstyjustwantoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutout—

“Yes, I think so.”

—selfishselfishselfishselfishselfishwasteselfishmonsterselfishfoxfoxfox—

“Did you sleep well?”

—justlikeherjustlikeherjustlikeherjustlikeherjustlikeherjustlikeherjustlikeherjustlikeher—

“I think so. I didn’t dream, at least.”

—monsterwolvesgotthemkilledmyfaultmyfaultthey’redeadmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfault—

“You’ve been having nightmares?”

—wolveswintercoldcoldcoldcoldcoldpainscreamcavehateringringringringringring **ring** —

“Sometimes. The Spiders.”

—liarselfishwickedwasteselfishwasteworthlesswastemonstermonstermonstermonster—

“I regret that you encountered them. That must have been terrifying.”

—monstermonsterdragonmonsterdragondragonmonsterdragondragondragondragon—

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

—rightkillinglovekillingkillkillkillkillfightkillthemonsterskillmonsterskillspiderskillorcskillme—

“I apologize for overstepping.”

She didn’t respond. Her thoughts were too—

—toomuchtooloudtoofasttoobigtoomuchtoomuchtoo—

loud.

* * *

 

Thorin

 

A surprise visit from Belda was unexpected enough. They were getting along better, thanks to the regular conversations—and each one twisted the knife a bit deeper, that he’d doubted her, mistrusted her, that he’d put her in danger and she was so young—and they had a routine. So he wasn’t surprised when she stayed still and silent by the door for several moments after it closed and locked.

But he would never have expected what came next.

A breath catching in her chest, she stumbled back until her back hit the door, eyes already wide and panicked, breathing speeding as her hands sunk into her hair. “I can’t do this—” She slid down to the floor, shaking her head—shaking all over—and Thorin could only watch, dumbstruck. “I can’t— I’m not— It’s too much, Thorin, it’s too—”

She broke off, eyes fixed on nothing, and the sight was too familiar—the war, sleepless nights before battles, unable to think past the terror and pressure and—for Thorin to let her sink into that pit. Crouching in front of her, he gripped her wrists lightly, frowning when her expression didn’t change. “Belda. Belda!”

She startled with a gasp, hands nearly striking out before he held them still.

Holding her eyes, he told her the one thing he’d always wished to hear then. “You don’t have to do this. You can go. Retreat and regroup, find another way to help us.”

Her eyes stayed on his for a long moment, then fell and fixed on something. He almost thought she was in a stupor again, until he realized she was looking at a bruise one of the weed-eaters had given him that morning. Slowly, her eyes rose to his, but she didn’t say a word. She only searched his face for long moments, before slowly nodding. “There’s dinner?”

He should keep pushing. He should get her to agree, but instead, he released her and stood. He had no idea what to say or how to say it.

After they finished eating—not that she ate much—he tried again. “You don’t have to do this.”

She didn’t look at him. “You said that.”

“Belda—”

“Thorin, what would you do?” Now she met his eyes, challenging, defiant, as stubborn as he was. “If you were in my position, what would you do?”

He’d stay where he was until his people were safe, even if it killed him. And they both knew it.

Alarm flitted over her face for the instant before earnest pleading replaced it. “Oh, please, Uncle Thorin, at least try to understand!”

They’d done this enough times in the last weeks that even he could manage to play along. “I said no and that’s final.”

“But he’s done everything he said he would, hasn’t h—” The door opened more quickly than usual. “No, just a few more minutes!”

The Elf—the same one who’d brought her there—shook his head sharply. “Hithlum’s waiting.”

Belda swallowed thickly; Thorin frowned. Wasn’t Hithlum the healer? He’d thought Belda usually saw her in the mornings.

More meekly than usual, Belda scurried to the door and it closed behind her. Thorin stared at it for several minutes, unable to banish a sick foreboding.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Thorin was hurt. Thorin was hurt—

—protectthepackprotectthemprotecthim—

—and he wanted her to run? To leave the Company?

—selfishselfishselfishselfishselfishwasteselfishmonsterselfishfoxfoxfoxjustlikeher—

That wasn’t going to happen.

It took everything she had to maintain her mask while Hithlum examined her again; the closer night came, the more her thoughts—

—toomuchtooloudtoofasttoobigtoomuchtoomuchtoomuch—

—whirled.

Hithlum frowned. “You’re still feverish.”

—nocan’tstayherecan’tstayhavetogooutoutoutoutoutoutoutout—

“It’s just from walking up from Thorin’s cell, I’m sure!” Belda restrained a wince; that had been too desperate.

But it worked. Hithlum’s eyes widened. “You visited Thorin today?”

Belda shrunk in on herself, feigning remorse—

—lielielielielielieliarliarliarliarliarjustlikeher **justlikeher** justlikeherliarliarliarliarliarlielielielie—

—and blinked up at her. “Just for a few minutes.”

Slowly, Hithlum turned to Gobennas, who straightened to his full height, fear spiking in his scent. A glint of light caught Belda’s attention to the side. “The king commanded it, ma’am.”

Hithlum’s tray of tools was just there, most of them too big and too unwieldy for Hobbit fingers, but the scalpels—

Hithlum scowled more darkly than Belda could ever recall seeing an Elf. “Thranduil.”

She turned away, toward the door, and began to move toward it; Gobennas caught her arm, turning toward the door as he did.

Before the moment could pass, Belda plucked two scalpels from the tray and slid them carefully up the leg of her trousers; with the weight she’d gained, she didn’t need to tie them on: the taut fabric took care of it for her. She’d have to be careful, but what was new there.

As she hid the knives, Gobennas pleaded with Hithlum, “Don’t do anything rash—”

“Rash?! No, this is far from the first time he has overridden my direct orders, this is not rash.”

With that, she tore her arm free and stalked out of the room. Gobennas stared after her for a few moments, then turned to Belda. She blinked innocently at him.

—lielielielielielieliarliar **you’realiar** justlikeher **justlikeher** justlikeherliarandafoxanda **dragon** —

“Can we go back to my room now?”

His jaw tightened. “Hithlum didn’t clear you for that.”

“But she didn’t say otherwise, either.” He hesitated; aware that she was on thin ice, she cajoled, “It won’t be hard to bring me back if that’s what she wants, but since we can’t ask her, wouldn’t it be better for me to rest in my own room? I can’t relax here.”

His brow furrowed, slightly, at that. “There seemed to be no such problem before you were released.”

—liaryou’realiarandheknows **heknows** you’realiarselfishmonsterdragonmonsterselfish—

“But that was before,” she checked the desperate note creeping into her voice, and sent a silent prayer to Eru Gobennas hadn’t heard it, “now that I’ve gotten used to privacy again, it’s horrible having it taken away again. It wasn’t so bad with the Company because I chose it, but now?”

She shuddered, biting off her explanation before she could begin to ramble.

—toomuchtooloudtoofasttoofastcan’tstaystillhavetomovehavetorunrunrunrunoutoutout—

He considered that, then nodded, if only uncertainly. “Until she says or sends word otherwise, then.”

—monsterliarselfishwastedragonfoxjustlikeherliarselfishselfishselfishselfish—

The walk back to her room took longer than it ever had before, but finally she was in, she was safe, he was gone and she was—

—painpainpainpainpainpain **painPAIN** —

Hissing through her teeth, she pulled the leg of her trousers out and let the now-bloodied knives fall to the floor. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she sat next to the knives and used one to cut the trousers from her waist to below the cut, then examined it.

All things considered, it wasn’t bad. The blood was seeping, not spurting or gushing, so no main veins or arteries were damaged. It was a clean cut—the knives were very sharp—so there wasn’t much risk of infection, she thought. It wasn’t too big, either, only an eighth of an inch or so deep and about three finger-widths long.

But it still hurt.

Cutting the trousers the rest of the way down, she cut the loose fabric free, then into strips. The only water in the room had been sitting stagnant for days, and with her blood already in it, she wasn’t sure if that would make it more likely to give her an infection if she used it to clean the wound. So she just wouldn’t clean it. There’d be time for that later, when her head was clear.

Bandaging the wound didn’t take long. Putting on fresh trousers without aggravating the wound or displacing the bandage took much longer.

By the time she was done—

—movemovemovemovemoveoutoutoutoutoutaircan’tbreatheairtreessoilairairairairair—

—she was practically vibrating, hands shaking so much that she barely managed to pick the lock on the door with the scalpels. They weren’t perfect, but they worked well enough.

She bolted out of the room as soon as the door was opened, but froze before she’d gone thirty steps.

—whatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatif—

It took long minutes of arguing with herself before she could move again, and she knew that the only reason she’d been able to reason even that well was the pain. But she forced herself back into the room, forced herself to grab the bag that had been stuffed at the back of the chest of drawers, to stuff extra clothes into the bag, the journal, her jacket—

She wasn’t running.

She.

was.

not.

running.

But if something happened, if she couldn’t come back for some reason, she couldn’t leave—Ori’s journal, her Da’s jacket—those behind. She couldn’t.

That done, she scooped the scalpels up from where she’d dropped them when the door opened and stepped into the hallway again, bag over her shoulder despite how her back protested. Hands shaking worse than before, she closed the door and relocked it, just in case, and only just held herself back long enough to wrap the knives in a spare tunic and stuff the parcel into the bag before she took off running.

She had to slow down before she neared the populated sections of the Halls, but being able to run again, even for that brief time, even with her leg screaming at her, was almost overwhelming in its relief.

It was slow progress. No one could find a Hobbit who didn’t want to be found, but that was only when she was staying still. Even in the middle of the night, the Halls were far from deserted, away from areas like the dungeons. It was rare that she went five minutes without having to stop and wait for someone to move out of earshot.

She only hesitated once, when she was about to move into the section nearest the gates, the walkways. Not because of the height. Because there was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. Once she stepped foot on those bridges, either she made it outside or she was caught and probably imprisoned and who knew if she would even survive her First Shift.

But with her heart pounding and her heart racing and her thoughts whirling, it was less than a minute before she couldn’t hold herself back any longer.

Slowly, she crept along the walkways, half-blind and half-deaf and she was sure they’d hear her breathing from the other side of the Halls, but somehow she made it to the gates.

But they were guarded, they were guarded, of course they were guarded, and she hid behind a pillar, staring at the doorhandles. They were twenty feet away—less—the outside was in her reach and she couldn’t take it, she couldn’t go, she couldn’t—

No. She’d find a way.

Abandoning her caution—some of it—she crept along the shadowed edge of the platform, moving slowly enough that her arms shook and her leg screamed and sweat made her hair stick to the back of her neck, but it worked, the guards didn’t see her, and she flattened herself against the wall to one guard’s right. They’d have to open the doors at some point—

—but what if it’s not until morning, what if it’s too late, what if what if whatifwhatifwhatif—

—and she waited in perfect silence.

Ten minutes later—just as she was beginning to itch from the need to movemovemovemovemove—both guards slid smoothly into motion, moving out of view, because the doors opened out—

—outoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutoutout—

—and she immediately crept forward, listening to a handful of Elves approaching. Two of them were chatting in Sindarin, a mindless conversation that she didn’t bother to pay attention to, and she waited until the last second, until the last of the group was walking past and the guard facing her was watching one of the two chatterers and she physically couldn’t wait another instant, and she darted around the guards and out the door—

—theysawtheysaw **theysaw** they’llcatchmecatchmelockprisonnononononononon—

—and didn’t slow, bolting to the side and dropping the ten feet or so off the edge of the platform to the forest floor.

Heart pounding, she closed her eyes and just listened, digging her fingers and her toes into the dirt—

—yesyesyesyesthisthisthisthisnotenoughnotenoughnotenoughnotenough—

—and she heard the doors close, thudding shut without any indication that they’d seen her.

She let go of the breath she’d been holding in a gust, gasping as she tried to catch her breath again, and then had to stem a hysterical laugh—

—diditdiditdiditdiditdiditdiditoutoutoutoutoutairsoilplantsairscentsairairair **canbreathe** —

—as she moved back onto the platform, using the ornate carvings around the sides as hand- and toe-holds.

Her arms shook and her leg screamed and she thought the bandage had moved out of place at some point but it didn’t matter because she could run.

She ran and she ran and she ran and she felt her thoughts—stopstopstopstopstopstop—calm for a few, precious seconds.

And then it was over.

* * *

 

Tauriel

 

Walking through the halls, she restrained yet another growl at Gobennas’ stupidity. If Hithlum hadn’t been so insistent on tearing into him herself, Tauriel would have gladly done so.

It didn’t matter if ‘Belda insisted she was fine, that this was fine’, Belda was a child and not able to make those decisions for herself. If he’d been so concerned, he should have taken her to see her father and let him make the decision.

But no, instead he’d left her unsupervised for the vast majority of the day—against Hithlum’s express orders—when he knew there was a good chance that her judgement was impaired.

Still scowling, she unlocked the door to Belda’s room and opened it more quickly than she meant to, a scolding on her lips—

But instead, she froze. Belda wasn’t there.

Belda wasn’t there, she wasn’t there, how was this possible?!

Stepping in, Tauriel inspected the room quickly, desperate to find that she’d just overlooked the tiny girl, that she wasn’t gone, but there was nothing.

But then she noticed the bowl, the water, the blood, and she ran.

The alarm was easy to raise—she was the Captain of the Guard, after all—and enough of them had grown fond of the girl that even the reluctant were pulled along.

Not that many were reluctant, or half as reluctant as they might be were the situation different.

But the evidence was there. Belda had been hurt by someone—given that Hithlum had seen her less than an hour before and she was unharmed—taken by someone—given that the door had been locked when Tauriel found it—which meant she was now being held by someone.

The entire Halls were being torn apart, looking for her, but Tauriel’s duty was to investigate more carefully. If they were within the Halls, they’d be found, and soon. But given that her kidnapper had to be an Elf, he or she would know how easily they’d be found inside the Halls, and so the only logical thing to do was to leave.

And so, less than ten minutes later, Tauriel strode toward the gates, toward the guards.

“When were the doors last opened?”

The two men had already been at attention, but their posture stiffened further. “Two minutes hence, Captain.”

“Did anyone exit?”

The guard on her right immediately shook his head. “No, Captain, we would have seen them.”

But the other man was hesitating. She sharpened her tone. “Well?”

Snapping his eyes to hers, he told her tentatively, “I did not see anyone leave. But I did feel a rush of air as though someone had passed me. I saw nothing and I heard nothing, before or after the motion, so I concluded that it had only been a stray gust.”

She clenched her jaw. “But there is a possibility that someone did pass you unseen.”

“That would be impossible, Capt—”

“Enough. Open the doors.” The men jumped to obey her, and she let loose a sigh once the doors were closed.

Thanks to those two’s incompetence, she had no way to know whether they were outside or not, whether she should call out the full guard or return inside herself. Shaking her head, she loped to the edge of the path and scanned the dirt for tracks. An Elf would know how well they could track, but then, if the kidnapper were intelligent, he or she would have tipped the bowl out the window, and left the door unlocked, to leave the possibility that she’d wandered out herself.

She never could have made it all the way to the doors, though. And she would have been seen. Tauriel didn’t have an explanation for why they hadn’t been seen, but whatever the explanation was, it didn’t include a fifty-year-old Dwarfling.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda's thoughts crashed back in with painful intensity.

—runstaymorespacepainpain **pain** outoutoutoutmorespacenotenoughspace **notenoughspace** —

The rows of trees formed wide boulevards, but not wide enough—

—notenoughnotenoughnotenoughnotenoughnotenoughnotenoughnotenough—

—not for a dragon, not for her, she needed more space, more than this, more than she could see, she had to find it, but there wasn’t enough time, not enough time notenoughtime notenoughtimenotenoughtimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetimetime **time** —

* * *

 

Tauriel

 

Just as Tauriel spotted a faint—too faint, how’d they do that—set of tracks leading away, a sound slammed into her like an elk, so thunderously, ear-piercingly, deafeningly loud that all she could do was clap her hands over her ears and wait for it to stop stopstopstopstopstop—

* * *

 

Kíli

 

The weed-eaters had woken Kíli up—since holding Belda, he’d been able to get a few hours a night, though still not enough—running about like chickens with their heads off. Not one of them ever let anything slip about what they were looking for, but it was still funny to watch them.

Abruptly, something roared nearby— outside, certainly, but near enough that the very stone under Kíli shook.

He leapt to his feet, holding onto the bars as the sound disappeared as abruptly as it had begun, and when the Company started shouting over each other, trying to figure out what that had been, he couldn’t join in. He was too preoccupied with figuring out why that roar, whatever it was, had filled his chest and pulled at him to move like Belda’s whistle.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

At the roar, Dwalin sat bolt upright. When it ended—quick, too quick, what happened to her—he jumped to his feet. He didn’t need to join the Company’s frantic questions, he knew who that was, but worse than that—far, far, far worse—he knew what. He knew it like he knew the smell of burning flesh.

* * *

 

Balin

 

As the roar ended, Balin realized he was shaking. That was a dragon. That was a sound that one didn’t just forget, he knew that sound, that was a dragon, it had to be Smaug, it had to be. He’d found them. And they wouldn’t get a chance to take their home back.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Fíli leapt to her feet, joining into the others questions. “What was that? That was huge, it had to be, what was it?”

But everyone was asking the same thing. Shuddering, she steadied herself on the bars. Whatever that had been, it had terrified her more than any other single sound. Whatever it was, it was huge, and it was angry, and it was probably hungry.

* * *

 

Ori

 

Ori couldn’t move. That sound…

He’d never heard it before, of course he hadn’t, but he knew.

He knew it was Belda.

But what kept him from giving in to the sheer terror that it had first stirred up was a flicker of memory.

An fox he’d seen injured. Their screams were hard enough to hear when they were calm, but when that fox had stepped into the trap…

It had screamed. That had been the worst sound he’d ever heard. Until now.

Because that… that roar… that scream…

Belda was hurt.

And he wasn’t sure he’d forgive himself if she died.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda dropped onto all fours, in Hobbit-form again, and vomited onto the grass, sobbing harshly through her retching.

She’d been right, the space hadn’t been large enough, and now there was a bloody great hole in her leg, and her wings had snapped open when the agony hit and one had hit a tree and—

—that had been a crack, there was a crack, she’d felt— oh Eru, Eru have mercy, her wing was broken, it was broken—

She heaved again, bringing up bile, and shoved herself away from the pool as soon as she could, sobs wracking her. The pain was gone now, as though it had never been there, but she’d felt it, she remembered it, she could—

—she could still feel it if she focused, oh, Eru—

She retched again, this time bringing up nothing but a few drops of bile, and again shoved herself away. She landed on her back, staring up at the trees—

—the same sort of trees she’d just impaled herself on she’d just broken her wing—

—and she couldn’t let herself think about it, she couldn’t—

—couldn’t—

Swinging her bag onto her shoulder again, Belda lurched to her feet, and barely stumbled to the closest tree before she fell over. This wasn’t starvation, this wasn’t passing out, this was just sheer, bloody exhaustion—

—of course it was, everyone was exhausted after their First Shift, and she’d—

—she’d—

She couldn’t think about it. Shoving all thought of it aside, she stumbled to the next tree, then the next.

She didn’t know what she’d do. Her head was thick— muggy— foggy— was this how Kíli had felt?— she could barely think about things she wanted to think about—

Back to the Halls? Eventually, but now? Later? Soon?

But she couldn’t get caught now, she couldn’t, not when Thorin was hurt and Kíli wasn’t sleeping and Dwalin and Nori were separated and the entire Company was separated—

“Belda!”

She looked blearily around when—who was it, she knew that voice—her name was called, and only just spotted Tauriel—that’s who—before she was being hugged within an inch of her life.

“Come on, inside, we have to go—”

Belda didn’t understand, why was it so important, why was Tauriel out there, how had she found her—

“—didn’t you hear that monster? We have to go!”

Belda couldn’t suppress a flinch at that word, but Tauriel didn’t comment, just gripped her arm and pulled her along, probably thinking she was scared of the ‘monster’, but—

—inside, inside a cell, in that room, locked in—

—Belda had had enough of that—

—but how—

—she couldn’t—

—she could—

—she’d promised Gandalf—

—he wasn’t here—

—it couldn’t be so bad—

—and it was only once—

—the gates came in view, and Belda made her choice.

Yanking her necklace free of her tunic, she pulled her arm free of Tauriel’s hold at precisely the same moment that she shoved her index finger into the ring—

If she hadn’t already been half in motion, she never could have mustered the strength to run, especially leaving intentional tracks as she was, but she managed it somehow, long enough to slip Tauriel’s view and duck behind a tree as she ran past, chasing down what she thought Belda’s path would be.

Belda held on until Tauriel was out of view; as soon as she was gone, Belda’s legs gave out entirely and her stomach rebelled, and forcefully.

She’d already emptied it, but that didn’t keep it from heaving again, and again, and again. By the time she finally managed to stand without retching again, Tauriel had already gone back inside the Halls and emerged with a troop of Elves. They bolted down Belda’s false trail quickly enough that she didn’t think they could have heard her if she were trying to be heard.

Holding onto the tree for balance—everything looked different, with the ring on, and she couldn’t find her footing—she moved to face the gates, then began moving cautiously toward them, circling in the opposite direction from her false trail. Another group of Elves emerged and fanned out from where she’d stopped leaving tracks, none of them coming near her, fortunately.

Before she could rethink the impulse, she darted onto the bridge and flattened herself against the wall beside the door. Wincing as her head pounded, she fisted her hands in the hem of her tunic to keep from rubbing her temples. For whatever reason, the Elves were glowing, shining, unearthly beings with the ring on, and the light was as painful as it was soothing. More than anything, she just wanted the ring off, but that wasn’t possible, but until she was inside, not until she was safe.

But now it wasn’t just her hand buzzing, it was all of her, and there was a growl in her chest and now she understood, not completely, but some of it, some of it made sense now—

The doors opened and a troop of Elves came rushing out; she darted inside before the doors could close and kept moving, running silently along the walkways, and she had to stop and stand on the very, very edge more than once and now she had wings anytime she wanted but one of them was broken and she still couldn’t fly and the walkway wasn’t so high that she couldn’t catch herself on her own four paws but one of her legs had a hole in it and she couldn’t catch herself like that, either—

Almost as quickly as she’d escaped less than an hour previous, she made it to the main Halls, and after nearly five minutes of not seeing any Elves without more than enough warning to hide, she finally let herself pull her hand away from her necklace.

The ring seemed to resist—no, don’t go down that path, it’s just a ring, just a ring, just a ring—but came off after a moment, and she could breathe.

She hadn’t realized she couldn’t breathe, but now she could breathe and she stayed where she was for nearly fifteen minutes after shoving the necklace under her tunic again, catching her breath. And once she caught it, her head was still spinning and things were oddly blurry and she couldn’t tell if there were two of those light sconces just there or three or was it just one, but she could move.

And she had an entire mostly-empty palace to move around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles* I'm looking forward to the next few chapters. Are you?  
> Notes: 1) Her 'mention' of Hobbits being nigh-unstoppable right before and during their First Shift is a reference to berserkers. 2) There's an Into The Woods reference in her first section, for any fans of that. 3) Given that (in the movies, if not the books; I can't remember) Frodo is tempted to put on the Ring while it’s on a chain multiple times, I’m assuming it doesn’t matter if there’s something (like a chain) keeping the Ring from being a perfect fit and it’ll work anyway.  
> À demain!


	49. Thorin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Escape, part one.

When he’d felt the stone under him shake, he’d leapt to his feet, but it had stopped within seconds, and not returned. For several minutes, he paced the length of his cell. What had it been? Mirkwood wasn’t close enough to any volcano for it to have been an earthquake, but what else could cause such a thing?

The scrape of a key entering the lock broke him out of his thoughts; why would the Elves free him now?

But after a moment, nothing had changed. The scraping continued, and it almost sounded as though there were two keys moving over the metal. Bending to look through the keyhole, he bit back a growl as it proved to be blocked by whatever was making that sound. There was nothing he could do but wait.

He admitted to being puzzled, though. What were the weed-eaters doing?

Three and a quarter minutes later, the door swung open, and he stilled partway through standing as a tiny figure fell into the room, a long-handled knife in each hand. Grumbling under her breath, Belda pushed herself upright and blinked blearily at him. “Good, you’re up.”

He frowned, helping her up. “You’re slurring.”

She pushed him away once she was on her feet, but stumbled almost immediately, and he caught her elbow. “I’m fine. And we’re not going to get a better chance than this, so let’s go.”

And that, he couldn’t argue with, despite his concern. The sooner her father could take care of her, the better, and the sooner they were all free of the Elves, the sooner they’d all be safe. And the sooner his Heirs would be in his arms again.

(Thinking of his Heirs, he failed to see how her steps faltered every so often as sleep claimed her for a fraction of a second.)

* * *

 

Kíli

 

He’d sat, after a minute of watching the Elves run around even more frantically than before, but they’d all seemingly disappeared not long after that. He had no idea where they’d gone, he just knew that he hadn’t seen a soul for fifteen minutes, at least. The Company had quieted again a few minutes earlier, and he rubbed his chest, still looking out at the walkway.

That sound… why had it made him think of Belda? Why had he reacted like that? He’d leapt up the instant he heard it, and thinking back, it hadn’t been fear of whatever had made that noise so much as the same sheer, bloody terror he’d felt to see Belda hurt. He’d leapt up the way he’d leapt to follow Belda’s order when she shouted for them to sheathe their weapons, to run from the Orcs—

But Gandalf had said that was just a Hobbit thing, how could that sound have been—

Motion caught his eye and his heart leapt to see Belda, but he leapt to his feet to see Thorin. Even after Dwalin’s veiled assurances that Belda had seen Thorin, that he was safe, some part of Kíli still hadn’t been able to believe it, not without seeing him, not until now—

He bit back a sob, clutching at the bars—when did he move—but he couldn’t restrain his grin. Thorin grinned back, eyes suspiciously shiny, and covered his hands on the bars, but didn’t say anything. Even when the door’s resistance disappeared and it swung toward Thorin, they just moved around it and then he was in Thorin’s arms and he couldn’t keep from crying any longer.

* * *

 

Belda

 

The joy in Kíli’s scent was almost tangible, and Thorin’s was just as thick. Once the lock stopped bloody moving and she got the door open, she barely even got out of the way before Thorin moved around her and engulfed Kíli in a massive hug. She was glad for Kíli, of course she was, but mostly the sight just reminded her of how much she wanted her Uhdad.

Scrambling to his cell, she shoved the scalpels into the lock and fumbled it open, using the door to pull herself upright and back just in time for her to be swept up and then she was in her Uhdad’s arms—

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

A wracking sob left Belda as she clutched at him; thinking of that night in the Misty Mountains, he tightened his hold on her, fighting tears himself. For nearly a minute, the two of them simply held each other.

Abruptly, she stiffened and started trying to push away from him. “Nori— I have to get her out—”

A familiar, welcome laugh interrupted her, and Nori poked her arm playfully. “Now, what did I say, kit? Whistle and I’m with you.”

* * *

 

Nori

 

Almost before she’d finished speaking, Belda tackled her in a hug, just as she had when they first started meeting. And just as it had then, it took Nori’s breath away. Fighting tears, she returned the hold, gingerly; after weeks of hearing all the reasons Belda had to be wary, to keep her distance, part of her was afraid that she’d scare her off if she held her too tightly.

But she couldn’t keep from smiling.

Remembering Dwalin, she looked up, half-afraid he’d be jealous or annoyed, but he was smiling, too, softly. Meeting her eyes, his smile widened, and he moved forward to hug Belda from her other side, one hand cupping Nori’s jaw as he bent his head down to touch their foreheads together.

Peace deeper and richer than she could remember ever feeling before filled Nori, and she let her eyes fall closed, leaning into his touch. This was what had still been missing. Her kit, her One, both of them with her, both of them so precious to her.

If she hadn’t already been planning to give most of her share to her brothers, she would have told Thorin he could keep his gold. She didn’t need it, and it could never be as dear to her as her family.

This was more than she ever could have hoped for.

Further down the line, Bofur called out, “Lovely family reunion— think you could manage one for the rest of us?”

Snorting, she drew back from Dwalin and shot an unamused glare at Bofur’s cell. The angle wasn’t right for him to see her, but he laughed anyway, probably imagining her expression. Sharing a wryly resigned look with Dwalin, she squeezed Belda tighter for a moment as he stepped back.

“Well, kit,” Belda drew back as reluctantly as Nori did, but smiled through her tears when Nori chucked her under the chin, “back to work, eh?”

Belda nodded, expression firming, and Nori moved to Dori’s cell; Bombur was next in line, but the kitten could free him as well as Nori could. She needed to see her brother.

* * *

 

Ori

 

Ori’s concern had faded as he heard the others talking, thanking Nori or Belda for freeing them—though mostly Nori; Belda had freed Bombur in the same time Nori freed Dori, Balin, Bofur, and started on Fíli—but it returned full-force when Belda stood in front of his cell to pick the lock.

She looked terrible. Better fed than he’d ever seen her, yes, but her eyes were bloodshot—with shadows darker than Mirkwood under them—and her hands were shaking. Every so often, her eyes closed and her head drooped for an instant, before she jerked upright again, shaking her head as though she could shake off her obvious exhaustion.

And looking at her, he knew he couldn’t hate her. He wasn’t sure he’d forgiven her for lying to him, but she’d run herself into the bloody ground for them. She had any number of times before, she had now, and she would again, he knew. She was a dragon, and he still wasn’t at ease with that, but she wasn’t Smaug. Or if she was, she was on their side, not his.

He couldn’t help but be a little unsure what she would do when she saw all Erebor’s wealth, but…

He’d been a rock-headed fool. As angry as he was that no one—not Fíli, not Dori, not Nori, not even Dwalin—had tried to get through to him, he was ten times as furious with himself for ignoring everything he knew about her.

As she worked on his lock, he opened his mouth to apologize, though the words were nigh on impossible to find. He’d been such a fool— he’d ignored any sign that she was afraid, or starving, or exhausted, just because he was afraid of her.

But he’d never wanted her to die, he would have realized this before if she’d been seriously hurt.

…Wouldn’t he?

Slowly, he closed his mouth, unable to say whether or not that was true. If the spiders had attacked just after she admitted what she was, would he have mourned her? Maybe later, but just then?

His stomach roiled, and he swallowed down a surge of bile. He had no idea.

He had no idea if he would have cared if she died.

The lock _clunked_ open while he was still reeling, before he could gather a single ‘sorry’, and she moved to Bifur’s cell, beside his. Nori and Dori and Fíli rushed in a moment later, and seeing them—holding them, feeling them—was too overwhelming for him to muster a thought for anything else.

At least, until Nori—after giving him a hug that would have been bone-cracking for anyone else—moved away, to Óin and Glóin’s cell and his eyes fell on Belda again.

Fíli, her arm still around him, squeezed his waist gently, and he offered her a tight smile and a dismissive shake of his head. There’d be time. Once they were free of the Elves, there’d be time.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Hearing Óin and Glóin’s voices join into the cacophony, Belda caught Nori’s eye and gestured to Bifur’s lock with a defeated shrug. The bloody thing wouldn’t stay still—but she knew it wasn’t the lock, it was her—and it was blurry—but that was her, too, wasn’t it—and if she didn’t give up now, they’d be waiting for her until the guards came back.

Stepping back, she collided with someone; it took her a moment to recognize Dwalin’s voice when he spoke. “You all right, kit?”

Scrubbing a hand over her eyes, she nodded. “Ready to be done.”

He half-laughed, wrapping his arms around her in a backwards hug. “I know, kit, me too. But we’re almost out.”

He meant it as a comfort, she knew (dimly), but it sent a anxious chill through her. They weren’t ‘almost out’, just past the point of no return, and it was up to her to get them out, she had to lead them, had to keep them safe, had to stay awake until they were safe, she couldn’t—

“..it? Belda?”

Her eyes snapped open—when had they closed?—though they felt as though they weighed twenty pounds each. “Sorry, what?”

Concern tinged Dwalin’s scent. “Which way to the exit?”

Oh, that. Shaking her head, she pulled out of his hold. “Not yet. This way.”

Weaving through the few members of the Company between her and the end of the dungeons, she paused at the corner and just listened. It was difficult, with how her head was pounding, but she could hear well enough to be reasonably sure there were no Elves in earshot.

Turning to the Company, she gestured for them to follow her and silently crept down the hall. They were hardly quiet—they never were—but they quieted enough that her headache dulled to an insistent throbbing.

After several long, tense minutes, they reached the first storeroom. It wasn’t locked, and the Company rushed in, grabbing armor, cloaks, packs, everything that had been taken on arrival that wasn’t a weapon. Dwalin and Nori both slowed, passing her, but she waved them on, patting her bag.

She felt a bit bad about that. The bag, the clothes, the necklace— none of it was hers, it was the Elves’, but what choice did she have? Her old clothes didn’t fit, she didn’t have anything else to hold the ring, and she needed something to carry her things.

After it was all over, she’d send them back. She wouldn’t be surprised if the Elves burned it all.

They were going to hate her.

Her throat closed despite herself. Hithlum was kind, Legolas was someone she’d be glad to count as a friend—as was Tauriel, though she didn’t know her as well—and she’d met so many others over the weeks who she’d miss. She wouldn’t miss the Halls, but she’d miss them.

And they were going to hate her.

A spike of noise sent a matching spike of pain through her temples; opening her eyes, she looked over the room, though it took a good few seconds of blinking before she could see more than blurs.

Fíli was searching through the shelves, something almost tangibly desperate in her movements; Ori was standing just behind her, shoulders slumped and expression desolate, as he scanned the room hopelessly. Realizing what he was looking for, Belda jolted, her bag abruptly heavy.

But— he hated her. His disgust had been thick enough to choke on when she was unlocking his cell. There had been more, there, more she couldn’t decipher when her head was so muddled, but disgust had been easy to identify.

But it was his.

Stomach twisting into knots, she pulled his journal out of her bag and made her way over to him. He didn’t notice her until she was almost to him, and she didn’t wait for him to speak—couldn’t even look at him—before she held the book out. “I—” Her mouth was dry; clearing her throat, she tried again, still in no more than a whisper. “I needed a reason to be brought here. I’m sorry.”

Slowly, he took it; she slipped away as soon as he took the full weight, eyes burning at the sheer hatred and fear she’d caught scent of.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Fíli stared at Belda’s back for a moment, unable to move for the dread weighing her feet down. Shaking it off, she moved to Ori. “All right?”

His eyes were on his journal, and she kept hers on his face as he nodded. “I think so. I don’t see any damage.”

She’d meant him, not the journal, but maybe he simply didn’t want to discuss it in the others’ earshot.

Her eyes rose to Belda again, standing with her back against the doorframe, and narrowed. What was she up to? She had to be up to something, hiding Ori’s journal like that.

There was something Fíli was missing. She hated that. But Belda was hiding something, and Fíli was beginning to suspect that whatever it was, Ori knew. And if it was bad enough to turn him against her like that, it had to be terrible. And if it was so terrible, the only reason Fíli could think of that he wouldn’t have told her or Thorin was that Belda had some leverage to keep him from telling anyone.

There was a part of Fíli that didn’t want to believe it, that remembered the weeks they’d spent in Rivendell, how she and Belda had grown to be friends there. But the evidence was there. She’d always avoided speaking of her life before they met her, apart from what she told Dwalin, but how did they know she was telling the truth about that? She knew things—Beorn’s language, when Elven magic was around, how to speak to the Mirk-creatures—that no one could know, unless she was lying about who she was. Her reflexes—in Mirkwood, in Hobbiton, fighting the Orcs—were quick as an Elf’s and always, always vicious. And of course, there was the ‘coincidence’ of Kíli’s waking just as she was knocked out, and then the additional 'coincidence' of her miraculously being the only one of all of them to be completely untouched by the spiders.She’d spent all those hours alone with the Elves in Rivendell, and now she’d spent bloody weeks alone with Thranduil’s lot; who knew what she’d been doing, what she’d been saying?

One of them had even given her a necklace, she could see it poking out of her neckline, with something precious hidden away, judging by how it seemed to be weighed down.

Fíli was Heir of Erebor, a Princess of Durin’s Line. There was a threat to her people here, and it was her duty to deal with it.

Her duty.

Her own.

And she wouldn’t let anyone threaten those who were precious to her.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

It took several minutes more for Belda to lead them to their weapons, and Kíli’s concern only grew as they followed her. Compared to how she’d moved when she went after the Trolls, when they were going after the spiders—when she went to lead the spiders off—any one of a hundred times he could name off the top of his head, she almost seemed drunk. He knew her too well to think she actually was drunk, but—

As she paused them at a corner, he saw her slump against the wall for a second, then jolt as though she’d been unexpectedly wok—

He’d barely had eyes for anything or anyone but Thorin and Fíli—who was being even more odd than she was before, but he still hadn’t had the chance to confront her without an audience—since he first saw Thorin. He still couldn’t help but glance at them every few seconds, part of him so sure that they’d disappear if he looked away too long.

But even the situation at hand couldn’t make the memory of her passing out in the forest any less vivid. One second, she’d been fine, she’d been talking— the next, she’d been limp and lifeless and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to let go of her. The seconds before she’d woken had been among the most terrifying in his life.

And she’d started insisting she was fine as soon as her eyes opened.

If he hadn’t still been terrified she was dying, he might have laughed at how unbelievable a lie it was. But he had been. And now, he didn’t think she was dying, but she wasn’t fine, either.

The door keeping them from their weapons—unlike the previous storage room—was locked, though Nori had it open in a matter of seconds. She paused before she actually opened the door, saying something to Belda too quietly to hear; Belda's response was just as low, but he saw a smile flicker over her features.

Belda shuffled a bit further to the side, further out of the way, but she kept leaning against the wall, and her eyes fell closed. Nori sent a worried glance at Dwalin, but opened the door and went in. As the Company began to file in, Kíli moved just a bit more slowly then the rest, just enough to leave him at the tail of the line when he drew level with Dwalin and Belda.

They were clearly arguing over something, with how they were glaring, but neither said a word. The stare-off ended with Dwalin heaving a frustrated sigh and moving toward the door, while Belda visibly relaxed. Dwalin was noticeably reluctant to leave her, though, and Kíli spoke before he thought. “I’ll stay with her.”

Dwalin looked at him sharply, drawing up to his full height. There weren’t many Dwarves taller than Kíli, but Dwalin still had a bit over three inches on him, and in situations like this, Kíli felt smaller still. But after a moment, he nodded. “All right.”

Kíli couldn’t help but feel off-balance. “That’s it?” He’d expected an interrogation.

Dwalin smirked, no doubt aware that Kíli had thought it would be much worse. “I trust you to protect her.”

Glowing warmth filled Kíli; from her father—and more than that, from the man who’d trained him, the man who made it his mission to protect as many people as he could, the man who would undoubtably be in charge of protecting Erebor herself when they reclaimed her—that was the highest praise possible.

Shaking his head at Kíli’s grin, he moved past him, knocking their shoulders together as he added in a pointed undertone, “Long as you don’t get distracted.”

All Kíli’s warmth disappeared as he gaped at Dwalin’s back. Did he know— no, he couldn’t know— but did Belda— but if he knew, why would he— why was he— why did he trust—

A snicker broke through his thoughts, and he looked to Belda to see an amused smirk playing on her lips, though her eyes were closed.

Scoffing lightly, he moved to stand on her other side, leaning against the wall as she was. “So you told him.”

“Bit hard to keep it secret when I was blushing every time I so much as thought about the Spiders.” So Dwalin knew everything. Sick dread twisted his gut; a tiny, cool weight pressed against his arm, and he glanced down to see Belda looked up at him sympathetically, though she was still smirking. “He’s not going to do anything to you. I thought he might insist on us being chaperoned until we’re old and grey, but he just said he was surprised we hadn’t gotten carried away before that.” Relief defusing his dread, Kíli extracted his arm gently and wrapped it around Belda as she settled against his side, instead. “Actually, he was impressed to hear that you were the one who put a stop to things before they went too far.”

He huffed lightly, remembering how hard it had been. “I wouldn’t have expected it, either.”

“I would have.” His brows shot up, but she only shrugged. “You’re as responsible as Thorin and Fíli, when it’s important.”

That wasn’t how he would have put it, and a bit of an overstatement, he thought, but he couldn’t find it in him to argue.

A clatter came from inside the room; she half-turned her head toward the sound before leaning it against his side. “Shouldn’t you get your weapons?”

And leave her? He couldn’t think of anything he’d like to do less. But he only shrugged, watching her eyes fall closed. “I don’t have so much to gather. I can always catch up.” Assuming no one grabbed his weapons for him, which was possible, if not likely. With her eyes closed, her eyelashes made the shadows under her eyes look even darker in comparison, and worry settled in his gut anew. “Besides, shouldn’t you sleep?”

She groaned, grimacing for the instant before she hid her face in his jacket. “Don’t you even say that word, you’ll make me tireder.”

Kíli was the first to admit that he’d never been overly interested in his studies, but he knew ‘tireder’ wasn’t a word. “Now I know you need—” He kept from saying ‘sleep’, barely. “—it. Come on, we can sit, at least.”

She grumbled incoherently, but did slide down the wall with him to the floor. He kept his arm around her as they lowered, ready to catch her if he needed to, but they made it to the floor without incident. That came when they were rearranging their legs and his knee bumped into her calf.

Hissing through her teeth, she bent over her legs, hands darting to hover protectively over a spot on the side of her leg, just below her knee. It didn’t take a trained healer to know that meant, “You’re hurt!”

And it hadn’t been him, either; now that he was looking, he could see that there was more fabric under her trousers just there, a bandage. She shook her head, still hunched into herself. “It’s nothing.”

He was starting to lose count of how many times he’d heard variations of that. “Belda.”

Flashing an apologetic grimace at him, she amended, “Nothing we can deal with now. It’s just a scratch, anyway.”

He frowned, unconvinced. “Belda—”

“Kíli.” She turned to look him dead in the eye, bracing herself on his leg. “It’s a scratch. Yes, it hurts, but yes, it can wait until we’re out of here, and yes, I will have Óin look at it once we’re safe.”

Part of him wanted to insist that she go to Óin now, but she was right that they didn’t have time, and looking in her eyes, he saw exhaustion, of course, but he also saw more clarity than she’d had in… He wasn’t sure. Certainly since Beorn’s. Maybe since Rivendell. He wasn’t sure what had changed, but something had, and she was the better for it.

Hating himself a bit, he nodded. “All right. But the second we’re safe—”

“You’ll get Óin if I haven’t already?” She grinned, though she was beginning to sway a bit. “Deal.”

Chuckling, he nodded. “Deal. Now come here.” It felt as though she were putting her full weight on his leg; it didn’t hurt, but he was a bit worried that she’d fall over if her arms gave out. Gently, he pulled her to his side, and she melted against him with a sigh, leaning her head against his shoulder. Remembering the aftermath of their… ‘distraction’, he let his arm fall to settle in the curve of her waist, his hand falling naturally to her hip.

He was worried for a moment, but she smiled sleepily and relaxed even further. Smiling softly, he leaned his head lightly on hers, not putting any real pressure on her, but it was a comfort, for both of them, he thought. Dwarves weren’t very tactile, as a general rule. They didn’t need to be touched, or if they did, the little gestures between family were enough.

But if Belda was any indication, Hobbits were even more tactile than Men. She never seemed to fully relax unless she was doing something like this, in contact with someone like this.

Remembering the night after the Carrock, he flushed again, but if that wasn’t evidence…

Dwarves didn’t need to be touched. But he liked this. There was nothing inappropriate about it—apart from where his hand was, maybe, but he wasn’t thinking about that, he was not thinking about that—but it was intimate, in a way. Feeling her breathing, feeling her under his hand and in the circle of his arm, knowing that she could feel his breath, his heart—

He didn’t know about Hobbits, but for Dwarves, this sort of thing was only done—other than siblings, though usually just when they were children—by spouses or couples who’d been courting so long that marriage was a foregone conclusion. He should have been nervous, afraid of what Dwalin would say, what Thorin would say, but instead he breathed easier than he had in weeks. In months.

If he could have stayed with her, like that, in that peace, for eternity, he would have. The only he would have changed was to take off his armor, his extra layers, so he could feel her better.

Letting his eyes fall closed, he let himself forget their guardians and simply breathed with her. She wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been sleeping well, after all; they couldn’t afford to fall asleep, but they could rest.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

He was reasonably sure that his kit and her pup—even if they hadn’t been Mates, it still would have been obvious that he was hers—would keep their hands to themselves, but he still found himself hurrying to grab his various weapons so that he could bring the pup’s weapons to him and relieve him from his watch. Nori met his eyes at one point, but she just looked amused and went back to finding all her various daggers; she and Fíli seemed to be working together to that end, actually. It took him longer than he would have liked to find his knuckle-dusters—they’d been shoved into a corner behind Kíli’s quiver, as it turned out—but once he had them, he grabbed the quiver and turned to grab the bow a few feet away, but someone else grabbed it at the same moment.

He held Fíli’s eyes for a moment, but let go of the bow. They were obviously doing the same thing, but since he was going out there, weapons or no, he didn’t see any reason to hand over the quiver. After glancing down to check that Fíli already had Kíli’s sword, he wove his way through the Company and into the corridor.

The lack of anyone in sight was more confusing than concerning at first, as he knew neither of them would leave, but they might wander, and then he saw them.

If they weren’t asleep, they were close enough for the difference not to matter. But what caught him was how completely exhausted both of them looked. He’d known she was exhausted already—she had been for weeks—but he hadn’t realized that Kíli was so tired. But he could see it, in the shadows under their eyes, in how they slumped against each other. They looked like refugees, or parents outside their child’s sickroom, waiting for news.

The thought of the two of them being parents—of him being a bloody grandfather—was unsettling enough to break him out of his stupor.

Shaking his head, he stepped closer and dropped Kíli’s quiver onto his lap, careful to angle it so it wouldn’t bother Belda. The pup startled slightly and looked up at him, eyes wide, but Belda just grimaced, eyes still closed, and adjusted her position to compensate for Kíli’s movement.

Noticing the pup’s hand on her hip, Dwalin narrowed his eyes in a silent warning; swallowing, the pup started to pull his hand back, but Belda grumbled something incomprehensible and grabbed his hand herself, pulling it back to where it had been. Dwalin had to laugh at that, though he did his best to keep it silent.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Fíli couldn’t move. This was so beyond wrong she could barely comprehend it. She’d known they were close, known she would have her hands full, making Kíli see sense about her, but now she wasn’t sure it wasn’t too late.

And Dwalin was tolerating it! Even encouraging! She’d known he’d been even more enthralled by Belda than Kíli was, but still.

But seeing her force Kíli to stay where he was, Fíli felt sick. And Dwalin just laughed.

This was worse than she’d thought.

* * *

 

Nori

 

Fíli was standing half in the doorway, staring wide-eyed at something out of sight; brow furrowed, Nori slipped around her, and had to bite back a guffaw when she saw the bantith ra kanbith. Sharing a smirk with Dwalin, she crept up to Belda’s side and dropped her little sword gently onto her lap, after making sure that it was secure in its sheath, of course.

“There you are, love. Letter-opener and all.”

Belda’d actually opened her eyes when she felt her sword, and she picked it up carefully, examining it closely for any damage. Dwalin taught her well. She said something, but Nori didn’t catch it.

“Sorry?”

Slightly louder, she said, “Sting.” Holding the little sword in front of her face, blade pointed at the ceiling, she smiled with a feral satisfaction that had Nori grinning. “The Spiders have their stings, this is mine. I named it while I was drawing the Spiders off.”

“Sting,” Kíli repeated quietly. His voice was about two octaves lower than usual when he added, “I like it.”

Dwalin cleared his throat pointedly—Nori shot him a betrayed glance; they were so sweet together!—but the pup and kit didn’t jump apart, just looked sheepishly at him. Sighing, Belda sheathed her li— sheathed Sting, and shifted her weight, no doubt to stand.

Kíli hummed quietly. “Hang on.”

Belda only just had time to look at him, confused, before he flicked his quiver off his lap, slid an arm under her knees—though Nori couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to be trying to avoid the leg nearest him, for some reason—and stood.

Belda yelped quietly, grabbing his jacket, but after the initial shock, relaxed almost immediately. “Well, this is familiar.”

He turned bright red; Belda cackled.

At Dwalin’s inquiring look, she explained, “I passed out before we found you, at one point. Kíli caught me.”

The pup in question blushed even darker, and set her gently on her feet. “Well, I couldn’t let you fall, could I?”

She just smiled up at him, still holding his jacket loosely in the hand not holding Sting. Nori tilted her head, considering the tone with which he’d made his half-statement. If it had been just a hair different, it would have been a throwaway deflection, but his tone…

His tone was a promise.

He met her eyes, suddenly, and blanched at whatever look was on her face. Smirking, she drew one of her fleshing knives a half-inch or so, and snickered as he blanched half a dozen shades paler.

Belda frowned and followed his gaze, then gave Nori an exasperated scowl. Nori just shrugged, unrepentant. It wasn’t just Dwalin he needed to be wary of, was it? The sooner he learned that, the less likely it was that she’d need to give him an unexpected haircut.

Thorin exited the storage room a moment later, and Belda let go of Kíli’s jacket. As Kíli retrieved his quiver and Belda moved to stand by Dwalin, Thorin told the kit, “We’re ready to move on.”

She nodded, neck taut. “Right, then. This way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you enjoy the hugging? Good. Don't get used to it.  
> Also, I was going to have the entire escape in one chapter. That didn't happen.  
> Notes: 1) I know it's not super realistic for Dwarves (or anyone in Middle-Earth) to know that earthquakes are linked to volcanos, but after six thousand plus years of spending their entire lives underground (and also spread all over Middle-Earth), I feel like it's not completely impossible that they would have noticed the connection, although they don't know anything about tectonic plates. 2) Sleep deprivation is srs bsns. Dwalin was right; she'd be dead by now if she'd stayed 100% awake since she moved into the new room. At this point, it's a miracle she's still standing-- although if her microsleeps get much worse, she might not be for long. (Those are uncontrollable lapses into unconsciousness for anywhere from an instant to ten seconds. So far, she's only having split-second microsleeps, just enough to throw off her balance and disorient her.) 3) Hopefully this explains a little more of Fíli's thinking. And also what might be behind it. And also, I might be writing in limited third, not first person, but let this chapter be a reminder to never assume there's no bias in the PoV.  
> À demain!


	50. Belda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Escape, part two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, if you haven't read the previous chapter (I know I'm uploading this really early, sorry about that) you NEED to read it first. Trust me.

It took long minutes to reach the wine-room, but it took longer still for Belda, Thorin, and Dwalin to explain the plan to the others. None of them were keen to climb into spaces barely large enough to fit Bombur, and none of them were eager to let go of their weapons and armor when they’d only just recovered them.

But, as Belda pointed out and Nori confirmed—Belda didn’t know how Nori would know, but she sounded as though she were speaking from experience—if they had their weapons with them, with the river tossing them about, there was every chance they’d cut off their hand without meaning to. (Or, as Nori put it, give themselves scars they wouldn’t forget in a hurry.)

Kíli looked as unsure as the others, but he spoke up to support the plan, which made warmth fill Belda from head to toe. Ori, surprisingly, spoke up as well, though Belda supposed he was only supporting his sister and his king. Fíli spoke strongly against it, though, as did Bombur, Glóin, and Balin.

Thorin and Dwalin set into an fierce, though quiet, argument with the others, and Belda crept away to the door to listen.

There’d been a feast two days earlier—she’d eaten with the Elves and barely kept from biting someone—that would have been the perfect cover, but she’d barely been able to think five minutes ahead at that point. Trying to pull this off before her First Shift had never been an option.

She couldn’t hear any Elves coming, but it was only a matter of time before they realized she wasn’t outside. Wincing at a particularly loud exclamation from Glóin, she stalked back down the stairs to the Company’s level.

“That is enough.” Glóin immediately broke off, fear flooding his scent, and her focus wavered; had she been that out of control in Mirkwood, that they were so afraid of her? Shaking her head, she focused on the topic at hand again. “Since you obviously haven’t realized, we don’t have a choice. There are two exits out of these Halls: the main doors, and this. The woods outside the main doors are swarming with Elves right now, which means we cannot leave that way, and Eru only knows how long we have until the Elves come back, and we cannot still be here when they do. Either we leave through the water-gate or all of us are thrown into those cells again— including me, because believe me, they won’t trust me as far as they can throw me after this.”

In the silence that followed her chide, Bofur muttered, “I’d think they could throw you pretty far.”

Exasperated, she half-growled, “It’s a figure of speech, Bofur! Once they start actually thinking about what happened, they’re going to realize I led them off intentionally, they’re going to realize I was the one to break you out, and they’re going to realize that I’ve been lying to them for the last six weeks! They will never trust me again, which means we will never have a chance like this again. So either we risk the barrels or we rot in Elven cells. Which is it?”

Looking around the group, eyes narrowed, more than a few avoided her gaze, but no one argued further.

After several minutes, she and Dwalin had sealed in everyone—some of them packed with straw to ease the journey—and divided the weapons into two barrels for fear that in a single barrel, they’d be heavy enough to warrant suspicion. It was a blessing from Eru that there had already been so many barrels lined up on the trapdoor.

Dwalin had looked the other way when she pulled Kíli into a kiss just before sealing him in, with her bag for safe-keeping and extra padding; in turn, she’d busied herself with the weapons when he helped Nori into her barrel, which took a suspiciously long time.

Not that she was complaining that her Uhdad and his One were getting closer. She just didn’t want to have to hear it.

But finally, the only thing left to do was seal Dwalin in. They stared at the empty barrel for a long moment. Then Dwalin dropped to his knees and pulled her into a tight, desperate hug. She returned it just as desperately, wishing with everything she had that there was another way.

But there wasn’t.

“Kit, if you get in—”

“No.”

“—you can’t swim—”

“I’m going overland.”

“—I could go—”

“Uhdad, no.” Pulling back to look him in the eye, she blinked away the blur as best she could. “I can’t sneak you past the Elves— I couldn’t even sneak Nori past the Elves, and she’s smaller and quieter than you. I can get past them on my own, but only on my own.”

Even through the blur that refused to fade, she could see how broken his expression was. “I can’t lose you, kit.”

Losing the battle, she scrubbed a hand over her eyes, breath shaking in her chest. “I can’t lose you, either. Please, Uhdad. Please,” she begged. “this is the only way I can keep you safe.”

She could just see his lips twitch in an attempt at a smile. “Fairly sure I’m supposed to keep you safe, Lakhad-naithê.”

Chest tight, she hugged him again, burying her face in his hair. Unable to raise her voice beyond a high, thick quaver, she whispered, “But you can’t always.” Not from the Elves. Not from Smaug. Not from the Company, when they found out.

His breath hitched at that, but he didn’t argue. He just held her more tightly.

After a few (short, too short) minutes, they drew apart and moved to the barrel. He was big enough that he didn’t need any help in, and he didn’t leave any spaces large enough that they needed to be packed with straw. Once he was in, she turned half-heartedly toward the lid, but couldn’t bring herself to look away from him. With a gasping sob, she leaned down to press her forehead against his, tears falling from her closed eyes. The edge of the barrel cut into her ribs, but she ignored it. He had just enough wiggle room to lift a hand to her face, and she leaned into his touch.

This could be—

No. This was not the last time she’d see him. He was going to be fine, they were all going to be fine, they would all walk away from this if it killed her.

Still crying, she drew back and placed the lid over him. Sealing it took a handful of seconds; fighting her tears back to the point that she could actually speak took twice as long. “C— Can you breathe? You’re all right?”

His voice was muffled, but she could hear him well enough. “I’m fine, kit. We already went over this barrel.”

She knew that. She remembered that, sort of. Scowling, she scrubbed her arm over her eyes. Everything was doubled and it was giving her a headache. But she—

What was she thinking about?

A slight noise caught her attention. Blearily, she focused on it for a moment. It sounded like…

A spike of terror jolted her awake. Those were footsteps— those were Elves!

What if they noticed how heavy the barrels were—

What if they checked what they were sending—

—whatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatif—

Heart pounding, she darted to the lever and heaved. It took all her strength, but she managed it somehow, and the barrels rolled into the water below.

But the footsteps faltered for an instant, then sped to a run— they’d heard—

—whatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatif—

Before she could rethink it, she’d already run to the trapdoor and followed the last barrel down, down, down—

She hit the icy water painfully hard—her mother’s voice in her ear reminded her that if the fall had been much further, she’d have broken something—and immediately lost all sense of up, down, anything. The current was fast, and strong; flailing, she tried to find the surface, but just then some trick of the current swept her against something hard and flat— it could have been the wall, it could have been the bottom, it could have been the ceiling, for all she could tell.

The impact knocked all the breath from her, and startled a cry from her that the water rushed to smother. Just as abruptly, she broke the surface, and just had time to take a gulp of air before she was pulled under again. On and on, again and again, she was tossed about, sometimes almost running out of breath before she could catch another.

Eventually, the water lightened and the barrels crowded to a stop, though she was pulled under and into the middle of the group before she could catch herself. Some of the barrels rode noticeably lower in the water than the others, and she used the ropes ringing one of them to pull herself to the surface, clinging to it against the current. The barrels blocked her view; she couldn’t see what was blocking them without pulling herself further up, and that was impossible— she was starting to go entirely numb, and try as she might, she could barely manage to keep her head above water.

But it was obvious that they were at the water-gate. Would the Elves open it? Were there any Elves to open it? Had they been pulled into the search with everyone else? Had news of barrels escaping without anyone there reached them?

But the gate opened, and the barrels began jostling into motion again. Some of them jostled against her, and she might have cried out if she could open her jaws. Thinking that the Elves might be watching, she let herself slip mostly under the water again, still holding onto her barrel for dear life, and she saw how close the top of the gate was to the top of her barrel. Some of the empty barrels behind her didn’t even make it through until a trick of the water dipped their front under the edge and then pushed them the rest of the way through.

And then they were under the trees and there were no Elves in sight. Straining, she managed to pull herself partway out of the water again, but fell back quickly; she couldn’t feel her legs at all, but waterlogged, she was too heavy to pull herself up.

The water grew slower and more shallow at one point; her barrel lodged on something—she didn’t know what—as did a couple others. Shaking, she tried to pull herself on top while she could—

—she fell back into the water, and barely caught hold of the roots the barrel had lodged on. Flailing back to the surface, she retched up what felt like a gallon of water, and then just clung to the barrel for a minute, shaking, as she caught her breath.

Fear starting to burn in her gut, she took hold of the rope on the barrel and tried again, this time one hand at a time, inching herself up. After long, cold minutes, she collapsed onto the top of the barrel, shaking. For a moment, she almost thought she heard Kíli’s voice, but that was impossible.

A moment later, she clung to the ropes again as the barrel swept free, and a sob wracked her as she looked forward and saw the river go on, and on, and on.

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t— She wasn’t strong enough. Even if she were in the best condition possible, she wasn’t strong enough for this.

Dropping her head to the wood again, a slight clatter reminded her of her necklace.

Of the ring.

She didn’t want to use it—she never wanted to touch it again—but what choice did she have? She was already fading again. If she passed out here, she’d drown.

When the river hit a calm patch, she pulled her necklace clumsily free of her tunic, and slipped her index finger into the ring. Shuddering as the wrongness of it enveloped her, she wrapped the chain around her thumb and her ring finger, then gripped the rope again. The ring wouldn’t come off accidentally.

Or intentionally.

But it worked. Her numbness didn’t fade, but her fatigue edged back just enough that she was able to stay on the barrel while the trees thinned and the river joined a much larger waterway, and then while the barrels were all swept into a natural bay on the north shore. Seeing Elves watching for them with poles at the ready, Belda forced herself to let go and slip off of her barrel. It had run aground, and the water only licked at her knees, but still, she had to force herself to move before one of the Tall Folk noticed the strange, legs-and-feet-shaped holes in the water.

She stayed close, though, once she was on the shore, close enough to hear the conversation between a few of the Elves as they poled and roped the barrels together in the shallows until they formed a raft, of sorts.

“It’s a good thing you heard them coming; they might have been damaged if they floated free all night.”

“All night?” The speaker snorted. “Half the night, you mean. It’s past midnight already.”

“All the more reason to stop gabbing and get this done so we can sleep!”

The third Elf either was in charge or just intimidated the others, because they moved faster than ever to finish. Or maybe he just had a point.

Even with the ring on, Belda could feel exhaustion dragging at her, and the idea of sleeping was possibly the best thing she’d ever heard, but with the ring on, the mere thought of what she’d dream was enough to jolt her awake again. Without it, her nightmares were terrifying.

With it? She had no intention of finding out.

Once the Elves had disappeared into the huts she could just barely make out inside the treeline, she crept to the barrel-raft and curled up on one of the lowest-riding ones. She had no idea who was there, but it was one of her Dwarves, she was sure of that. If she strained, she could just hear quiet breathing. She let out a relieved sigh, but it caught painfully in her throat and her chest and turned to harsh coughing.

Eyes watering and throat raw, she managed to stop some minutes later, and was careful to breathe shallowly. She could still feel it, feel the dryness in her throat and the ache in her chest and the way every breath, no matter how shallow, shook its way over the roughness and tickled at it on its way. Still shaking from the fit, she crept slowly over the length and breadth of the raft, counting breathers. A few struck her as important somehow, but she couldn’t think well enough to know why.

They were all there, all thirteen. She barely kept from taking a deep breath as she realized that. Looking over the surface of the raft, she realized she’d dripped her path along the barrels; to keep herself awake as much as to erase any trace of her, she crept over every inch she hadn’t already covered.

Thrice more, she broke down in harsh, hacking coughs, and twice, had to lean over the side of the raft to cough up greenish-yellow mucus. Every coughing fit left her more exhausted, and after the third, it was all she could do to crawl back to her barrel—she’d left a bit of her scent on it, evidently—and curl up in a ball. Her chest hurt every time she took a breath, and she could only breathe shallowly, and she couldn’t stop shaking and it was making her ache but she still couldn’t stop.

And she was so, so tired. All she wanted to do was sleep until she woke to see her parents smiling at her—

She inhaled a bit too sharply and had to focus on not coughing for long minutes. But when she could, she puzzled over her stray thought. She didn’t have parents, anymore. She had Dwalin, her Uhdad, and he’d been one of the people he was thinking of, but who…

She couldn’t think. There was something on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t quite think of it.

So, unable to relax, unwilling to sleep, she watched the stars spin and dance and swirl overhead, and waited out the handful of hours ’til dawn.

 

When dawn came, so did a wave of noise. Belda winced at both, her headache returning full-force. She’d managed a light doze, given how groggy she felt, but then, she’d been feeling groggy for some time, hadn’t she? So she wasn’t sure if she slept.

She hadn’t dreamt, of that much she was sure.

A few Elves came bounding onto the raft—her head pounded more—but most stayed in the shallows and prepared to shove the raft off. Distantly, she saw that she’d dried out at some point in the night. She couldn’t feel it. She was still numb.

The Elves spoke amongst themselves, some grumbling, some cheerfully, but she couldn’t understand them. She supposed they must have been speaking some other Elven language. Maybe that was why it seemed to fade in and out.

But finally, they shoved the raft completely into the water and the raft began floating down the river.

Belda held herself very still, both to keep from alerting them she was there and to keep herself from coughing.

As the day went on, it grew lighter and warmer—when she began shivering, she thought at first that the temperature was dropping, but slowly felt the temperature rise further, though she never did stop shivering—and soon she was bathed in sunlight.

Letting her eyes fall closed to better drink it in, she listened to the strange murmurings of the Elves and the birdsong in the trees. That didn’t make sense either, but she supposed they could be a different sort of bird than she knew of.

The entire day passed that way, though eventually the trees were replaced by cliffs, then by rocky shores, and then the river grew far, far faster. Remembering how she’d been batted about by the water, she shuddered and clung to her barrel. A while after sunset, the river fed into the Long Lake, and everything grew much calmer. That suited Belda, as she couldn’t tell if there were four or eight or two Elves on the raft anymore.

Voices called out, and Belda cautiously raised her head to see that there were Tall Folk—they were too blurry to tell whether they were Men or Elves—in boats on the far side of the raft from her. Long things—it took her nearly a minute to realize they were ropes—flew onto the raft and the Elves tied them down, and then the raft was pulled to the shore and moored just off of it.

Belda had thought to stay still until the Tall Folk were gone, but then remembered that she’d lost her scalpels at some point, and that the barrels were tied together. Carefully, she crept to the nearest Elf as he double-checked the moorings, and slipped the knife on his belt silently from its sheath.

At least, she hoped it was silent. She couldn’t hear a thing over the pounding in her head.

The Elf stood suddenly; she held her breath.

His head turned as he scanned over the raft one last time, eyes narrowed, she thought.

And then he walked away, joining the others as they walked toward the scatter of blurry lights in the darkness.

Belda held her breath for as long as she could, but eventually, she had to breathe, and for long minutes, she only coughed, hunched into herself first to try and muffle the noise, and then because she couldn’t move.

When it finally faded and she could breathe, she could barely gather the strength to do that. Everything hurt, and now she was too warm, rather than too cold.

But her pack needed her.

Dragging herself to the edge of the raft, she turned and lowered herself to the water feet first, holding onto the barrels with all her strength as she did.

The water, when she reached it—which didn’t take long—was shockingly cold, and she lost her grip. The water was deep enough that she was completely submerged when she hit the bottom, and terror shot through her, giving her the strength to scramble up the slope of the shore and into the air. Half gasping, half sobbing, she laid face-down on the rocks, too tired to drag herself all the way out of the water, too tired to fight the fit of coughing when it struck.

But her pack needed her.

Shaking, she wobbled to her feet and stumbled to the nearest barrel, holding on with both hands. Dimly, it occurred to her that she’d had a knife somewhere, before. She had to blink hard to clear her vision, but she looked around. As she did, she noticed a shiny thing on a necklace she was wearing; that wasn’t right, that was supposed to be hidden. Fumbling, she managed to drop the shiny thing down her tunic and then it pulled the necklace chain down, too. Then she kept looking for her knife; after a few looks, she finally caught sight of it, reflecting starlight from underwater. Groaning, she held onto the barrels with one hand and reluctantly ducked under the water, reaching out for the knife. It took her four tries to grab it—she’d missed it completely three times and cut her finger the fourth—but then she had it, and she could help her pack.

Still holding onto the barrels, she starting moving toward her barrel, but another caught her attention first. It was— She couldn’t think, couldn’t think why it was important, but it was, somehow.

It only took a second to cut through the ropes—the knife was very sharp—but it took her long enough to haul it aground that her feet were numb and she fell over. That worked out, though, as it tipped the barrel onto its side, and it was easier for her to pull off the top.

It still took her a few minutes to get the top off, though, and the abrupt lack of resistance meant that she fell onto her back on the rocks, and the breath that was knocked out of her started another coughing fit. It wasn’t long, but she was crying at the end of it.

She didn’t want to get up again. She hurt and she was too warm except for her legs and she still couldn’t feel her feet and her chest hurt and she ached everywhere and her headache was just getting worse and she couldn’t stop shaking and she just wanted to stop. To just— not move. Just for a few minutes.

But her pack needed her.

Throat thick and chest tight, she rolled slowly onto her hands and knees, then crawled to the barrel she’d cut loose and used it to pull herself to her feet. The Dwarf—his name, she knew his name, he was important—had dragged himself out already, and looked as miserable as she felt.

Stumbling to the raft again, she nearly dropped her knife when she collided with the first barrel; it hadn’t been where she thought it was. Head pounding, she didn’t dare shake off the blur, so she felt her way to her barrel. The water was waist-deep, there, but she didn’t shiver.

That wasn’t right, she thought, but she couldn’t think why.

She heaved her barrel aground beside the important one’s barrel—he still hadn’t moved, but she could see his back rising and falling as he breathed if she got close enough—and pulled off that one’s lid, too. She forgot about how she’d fallen before until she was falling again, and the only difference was that she’d already been out of breath when she hit the ground, and so it didn’t start her coughing.

But she still laid there for a long minute, breath shaking. She felt even worse than before, and she’d feel even worse after the next, and the next, and she just wanted to stop. When could she stop?

But her pack needed her.

Again, she rolled slowly to her hands and knees and crawled toward the barrels, but this time, she recognized the new Dwarf who’d crawled out. Not his name—what was his name, she knew it, it was so important—but she knew him, he was hers, somehow, and she was his, and she didn’t know how, but he was, she was, they were, and he was so, so important.

And he was— She couldn’t think of the word, but it was something warm and nice and safe and good and so many things. She wanted that, just for a minute. Just for a minute, and then she’d keep going.

Her pack needed her.

But she needed him.

He was moving more than the other one, but still not much. Breath shaking, she hid her face in his hair and huddled against his side for long moments. He moved a bit when she touched him, but not after that, and she nearly couldn’t tear herself away from him.

But her pack—their pack—needed her.

Her breath began to hitch as she crawled away from him and to the barrel so she could pull herself up, but it wasn’t until she was hip-deep in the water that a breath finally scraped a little too deep and she started coughing.

There were voices—that was… bad? She wasn’t sure—but she couldn’t focus on them; the coughs wracked her to the point that she lost her balance and fell forward, underwater.

Before she could even take a breath, she was out of the water again, still coughing. But now there was a hand rubbing her back and she was leaning against someone—against him, the really important one, what was his name—and he was so warm that she wanted to cry. She was so cold, but she was too warm, too, and he felt so good, but when she was warm he wouldn’t feel good anymore but she didn’t want to go anywhere else.

Eventually, she stopped coughing, and then she just sat there and breathed. There were voices again, one of them his, but she couldn’t understand them. That was funny, but she didn’t want to laugh. If she laughed, she’d cough again, and that hurt.

Then there was splashing, which didn’t make sense, she wasn’t in the water. Was she? She opened her eyes—when had she closed them?—to see, but no, she wasn’t in the water. He was still holding her, and now she could see his face. She liked his face. Tipping her head back, she just looked at his face for a few minutes; dimly, she knew that he was saying something, but none of it made sense, so she didn’t worry about it. He was safe. He wouldn’t say anything terrible.

Slowly, she realized that there was another barrel and another Dwarf on the shore now, and the important one was in the water. But that meant—

Breath hitching, she looked at him again, hoping she was right. “Can I stop?” His eyes widened; maybe he hadn’t heard her. “Please, can I stop? Just a few minutes, and I’ll help again, but…”

He starting saying something again, and it still didn’t make sense, but he was nodding, and she smiled. Just a few minutes. She just needed to stop for a few minutes.

She opened her eyes—when had she closed them? Had she slept?—when something moved her, and then his scent was gone and her Mum’s was there. A sob escaped before she could stop it, and then she just coughed for a few minutes, but her Mum rubbed her back like he had and held her like he had and she started crying while she was coughing from how much her Mum loved her.

Her Mum had never done this before. Just her Da, and her Da, and she couldn’t remember why she had two of them but she did. But her Mum had never stayed when she was sick, never, she always left. When she finally stopped coughing, that was still her first thought. “Why did you leave?”

Her Mum shushed her softly, and when she spoke, Belda could understand her, though her voice faded in and out. “I’m here, love…”

Weakly, Belda tipped her head back to look up at her Mum as her eyes filled. “No, when Da— after Da stopped screaming. Why did you leave me?” Despite herself, she couldn’t keep from beginning to cry. “Mum, I was so scared.”

Her Mum’s arms tightened as she shushed her again. “I’m right here, love, I’m not going anywhere.”

That made so little sense that Belda was able to stop crying, although with how blurry her Mum was, it almost looked like she was crying too, but that wasn’t right, her Mum never cried, never never never. “But you always do. You always leave, for months and months and m…”

Crying again, she couldn’t keep going, but her Mum tightened her arms around Belda again. “Well, from now on, I’ll never leave again. You hear that? Your Mum promises to never leave again.”

She looked up at her, still crying. She wanted to believe her, she wanted to so badly that it hurt, but how could it be true? She always left. Always. But she was promising, and she always kept her promises. All Belda could manage was a whisper. “Promise?”

Her Mum swallowed thickly, eyes shining, and bent down to touch their foreheads together for a second. “I promise, kit.”

Closing her eyes, Belda let her head rest on her Mum’s shoulder. She always kept her promises, so she would keep her promise. But Belda still needed to tell her— Her breath shook, but she didn’t start coughing, at least. Still, she could only say it in a whisper. “I’m sorry I’m not brave like you.”

Her Mum’s chest shook a little; Belda hoped she wasn’t getting a cough, too. “What do you mean, love? You’re braver than any of us.”

Screwing up her face, Belda couldn’t stop herself from crying. “No, I’m not, I’m scared of the wolves.” A sob escaped, which brought on more coughing, but she still had to tell her, “It— It hurt— whe— when they b— bit me— I d— I don’t want th— them— to b— bite me a— again—”

Her Mum shook her head, even as she rubbed Belda’s back. “Kit, what wolves?”

Couldn’t she hear them? They were so loud.

But before Belda could say that, everything went black and cold.

 

Belda woke with a gasp, already fighting free of the sheets she was tangled in. Dwalin rushed over from somewhere and gripped her shoulders gently. “Kit, calm down, you’re safe, you’ve—”

“No, the Company— the barrels— I have—” His grip tightened, keeping her from wriggling past him, and she scowled up at him; didn’t he understand?

“Kit, the Company’s safe. We got out of the barrels fine.”

It took a few moments for his words to sink in. “Wh— what?”

He nodded, but his scent was sorrowful. “Kíli kept you safe while Thorin cut the next few of us free; I wasn’t in any condition to take you at first, and Nori wasn’t in any condition to help with the barrels, but she was good enough to keep you safe while the rest of us got the others free.”

“Nori?” That didn’t make sense, she’d been talking with her M—

But Belladonna had been dead for years. And when she’d been waiting for dawn on the raft, she’d thought about her parents: Dwalin and…

But the sorrow in his scent didn’t make sense. “What happened?” The sorrow intensified, joined by pain so intense it was more like agony, and terror flooded her, speeding her heart and her breath until she could barely focus on him. “Uhdad?!?”

Tears already spilling over his cheeks, he cupped her face in his hands, and for a long moment, he just looked at her, eyes shining and heartbroken. When he spoke, she could barely even hear him. “They know, kit.”

Th— What? They, who was they, what did they know—

No. No, no, no, the Company couldn’t— they couldn’t—

Breath shuddering in her chest, she shook her head desperately, but his expression, his scent, never changed from sorrow, from pain, from sympathy, regret, remorse, anguish, so many different tints and none of them contradicted—

But that meant—

A sob burst from her, joined by another, and another, and he pulled her forward and then she was sobbing into his shirt, a sharper pain in her chest than she’d felt when she was coughing, when Ori had rejected her, than any heartache she’d felt in thirty-three years.

They knew.

They knew she was a dragon.

And they hated her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said I was sorry about how early the update was? HA! PSYCH! *cackles* And now you gotta wait until Monday to find out how they found out!  
> Notes: 1) Yeah, not Belda's finest moment. If she were actually awake, believe me, she never would have panicked like that, but like I said last chapter: her judgement? Super impaired. Super, super, like .15 blood alcohol level of impaired. 2) Yeah, the Elves are not speaking some unknown language, they're speaking Sindarin. You know, the one she's fluent in. Also, the birds aren't speaking some weird language, either. 3) Tiny little Doctor Who reference, from one of my favorite scenes in Forest of the Dead. (Slightly reworded, too, so good luck finding it.😊)  
> Monday's chapter will be the Company's PoVs of what happened, so full explanation there. But personally, I'm just going to be trying to build up my buffer again. (I still haven't finished chapter fifty-two 😫😫😫😫) Really hoping I can at least get fifty-two and fifty-three done before I upload fifty-one. We'll see.  
> À Lundi!


	51. Kíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The revelation.

Kíli crawled out of the barrel without so much as raising his head. As if the water hadn’t been nauseating enough, then someone had been hauling the barrel he was in around with no consideration for the Dwarf inside. If he moved in the next ten minutes, he was going to vomit.

He’d barely been able to breathe in that barrel, either, but that, at least was easier to remedy. The first gust of fresh air when the lid came off had been a blessing from Eru Himself, and every breath since was just as precious. He was never going to take air for granted again.

And now he could move, he wasn’t crammed in a tiny, dark space anymore, but moving was going to take another minute or two longer.

Something touched his back, suddenly, and he twitched, but a moment later, he recognized the size of Belda. At least, he assumed it was her. She’d probably had to run to keep up with the river, but she was there, and she obviously wasn’t going to push him to move before he was ready; a bubble of affectionate warmth rose in his chest.

She moved away after not nearly long enough, and he belatedly realized that she was soaking wet; some of his hair was clinging wetly to his neck now. That was strange enough to get him to open his eyes.

They were on a rocky beach, and there was a forest a stone’s throw away. For a moment, he thought they were still in Mirkwood, but after looking from side to side—Thorin was on his left, in a heap on the ground and looking twice as miserable as Kíli felt—he saw a city that could only be Lake-town on the right, and he flopped onto his side to look at it better.

They were out, and they were free.

Quiet splashing drew his eyes further to the right, and his heart leapt to see Belda, even if it was only her back. Grinning, he stretched his arms; he was still stiff, but he could help her.

Except…

His grin faded as he realized how unsteadily she was moving. Maybe the riverbed was uneven, but her movements seemed more than just unbalanced, they seemed weak. ‘Wet-paper’ weak, not ‘unenthusiastic’ weak.

Pushing to his feet, he asked Thorin, “How long have you been out?”

Thorin just grumbled incoherently, though Kíli had a feeling there was something about ‘bloody irrepressible children’ in there.

Sudden coughing snapped his attention back to Belda, and his heart skipped a beat to hear how wretched she sounded. “Belda! Are you all right?”

As he spoke, he began moving closer, but he still hadn’t reached the water yet when she pitched forward, into the water.

“BELDA!” Before he’d realized he’d moved, he was pulling her out of the water and into his arms, the same way he’d lifted her outside the weapons room, the same way he had when she’d passed out in Mirkwood, and she was still coughing, but that made sense if she’d inhaled a bit of water—

But a ‘bit of water’ wouldn’t tint her lips or fingernails blue, and a ‘bit of water’ wouldn’t make her cough like that, like she’d cough up a lung if she went on like that.

Panic still pulsing in his veins, he waded back to the shore, just as Thorin squinted at him through his hair. “Wha’ happened?”

With Belda shaking in his arms and still sounding as though she couldn’t even breathe for coughing, Kíli had no patience to spare, and snapped harshly, “What always happens! We get in some stupid situation and she runs herself into the ground to save us!”

Thorin stared at him, wide-eyed, and pushed himself up with a wince as Kíli lowered himself carefully to the ground, Belda still shaking and coughing and generally looking more miserable than anyone ever should. Once her weight was mostly on his lap, he pulled his arm out from under her knees so he could rub her back; he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

Her coughing just went on and on, and it wasn’t any ‘bit of water’, she was sick, she was seriously sick, and she needed help. Thorin was blurry when Kíli looked over, but he glared at his uncle regardless. “How. long. were. you. out.”

Thorin shook his head; Kíli almost snapped at him again, but his voice was so defeated when he did speak that Kíli didn’t have the heart. “I don’t know. I could barely move after I crawled out, let alone notice anything or anyone else.”

Finally, Belda’s coughing trailed off, and Kíli looked down at her, searching her face for anything, good or bad. She had her eyes closed, her head leaning limply against his chest, and her breathing was only shallow. And despite how cold she was, sweat was beading on her forehead. He didn’t know what that added up to, but he knew it wasn’t good.

Shaking his head, he looked over at Thorin. “She needs Óin.”

Thorin nodded, pushing himself to his feet with a low groan. “Come on.”

“I’m not leaving her.” Thorin stilled, then turned slowly to look at Kíli. Kíli met his glare with one of his own. “Or are you saying that a trained Dwarven warrior-king can’t accomplish the same feats as an untrained, half-dead Hobbit girl?”

Thorin’s jaw twitched, no doubt as he bit back whatever he’d been about to say, but after a moment, he just inclined his head and moved toward the barrels.

Kíli was taken somewhat aback—he hadn’t expected the argument to be over so quickly—but a few moments later, he felt Belda move, and forgot about his confusion. She was just opening her eyes, brow faintly creased, and looked at him.

Relief dulled his alarm somewhat. “Mahal, Belda, I though I asked you not to do that to m…”

She wasn’t responding. Not a smirk, not a smile, not a blink. She knew him, he thought, but it was as if she couldn’t hear him, or didn’t care, or didn’t know she should respond.

Relief fading again, he tried again. “Belda, do you know where you are? Who you are? Who I am?”

He paused between each question, but she never responded. Sighing, he looked to Thorin, but he was fishing around for something in the water: no help there.

Turning back to Belda, her expression caught him. It wasn’t quite blank, and it wasn’t quite unresponsive; he’d just barely caught her eyes moving to track him, and taking in her expression as a whole, he thought she looked… not-displeased. It wasn’t really strong enough to be called happiness, or pleasure, or satisfaction, but it was somewhere between those and neutrality. It wasn’t as bad as blankness, at least, but he wished he knew how to make her smile. He’d do anything to keep her happy.

But at the last thought, he stopped short. Anything?

He considered it carefully, and his breath caught in his throat. Anything.

He loved her. Maybe she was his One, maybe she wasn’t, but he loved her. Somehow, that wasn’t as surprising as maybe it should have been. It didn’t change anything, not really, except that he hadn’t been sure before and now he was: he’d spend the rest of her life making her happy. Maybe they’d have a handful of decades and that would be it, but whatever it cost him, he could make sure she was happy.

Assuming they both survived this. Focusing on the present again, he glanced at Thorin and saw that he’d found a knife from somewhere; it was only a matter of time until Thorin found Óin. A spark of hope settling in his chest, he met Belda’s eyes again and smiled. If she could understand him, maybe it would help her to listen, and if she couldn’t understand him now, maybe if he kept talking, it would be easier to tell when she started to understand. If he could just keep her calm until Óin could see her, that would help, wouldn’t it?

“I love you.” Pausing, he winced and lowered his voice a hair. “I didn’t actually mean to say that, but I do. I don’t know if you can understand me right now or if you’ll remember this later, but part of me hopes you don’t so that then the first time I tell you can be romantic and something we actually want to remember, not this.” Realizing he’d end up making himself upset, let alone her, if he continued on that vein, he changed subjects with a smile. “Did I ever tell you Dwalin and Fíli said I’d make a good Hersir? I don’t think I had the chance; it was between us splitting up and being captured by the Elves. But they did.

“I never would have even considered it, but now I can’t stop thinking about it. It would mean mountains of paperwork, but I would be in charge of the entire kingdom’s military, coming up with new plans of attack, planning attacks when we’re at war, keeping the ruler—so, Fíli—apprised of any changes, anything that needs changing, everything. It wouldn’t be for years and years yet, of course, but maybe someday… I’d still rather be a hunter than a smith, like I told you, but either one of those would be my Craft, not my job. I could still be a hunter if I became Hersir. Like how Thorin is still a smith, even though he’s a king. I know that’s probably a bit confusing—you said most Hobbits don’t do much of anything when they’re not working—but Dwarves need to stay busy, and our Crafts are an extension of that.”

He opened his mouth to keep talking, but fell silent as he realized Belda was looking past him, and her brow furrowed; after a moment, she looked toward the water, and her breath hitched. Looking toward him again, the sheer desperation in her expression kept him silent. “C’n I stop?”

His eyes widened; the first words she was going to say after all that, and that was it? What did she mean? Stop what?

But if anything, her expression turned more pleading, tears building in her eyes. “Pl’se, c’n I stop? Jus’ a few minu’es, an’ I’ll help again, bu’…”

That was what she meant— “Yes, of course, you don’t have to help, you’ve done enough— Mahal, you’ve done more than enough, more than any of the rest of us would have done, of course you can s…”

She smiled, eyes falling closed, and he trailed off, looking at her. She looked more exhausted than she had during the escape; he wouldn’t have thought that was possible.

Remembering that she’d looked past him at something, he belatedly followed her gaze and realized that Nori was on a heap on the ground. Mindful of Belda, he didn’t raise his voice overmuch as he called out, “Nori! All right, there?”

Groaning, she rolled onto her side and gave him a weak smile, but when she tried to push herself upright, her arms gave out and she fell again with a dull _thunk_.

Concerned, Kíli stood—careful not to jostle Belda—and walked over to sit on Nori’s other side; he couldn’t help with the barrels, holding Belda, but he could get one arm free for this. “Need some help?”

She grumbled at him, but took his hand when he offered it. He’d sat a bit too close, as it turned out, as their sides ended up pressed together when she was upright again, and Belda’s feet nearly got squished. The sound of his name being called caught his attention, but he looked at Thorin by the barrels helplessly. He couldn’t leave Belda.

“Give her here.” He looked at Nori wide-eyed, but she only rolled her eyes at him. “I’m in no condition to be hauling barrels around in knee-deep water, but I can hold her. You’re stronger than I am, anyway.”

She made sense, but he still hesitated.

Her expression softened. “She’s not going to be gone if you turn around, pup. She’ll be safe with me.”

And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Every time they were separated, something happened to her. He didn’t want to let go of her.

But she wouldn’t be alone, she’d be with Nori, and Nori wasn’t a healer any more than he was, but with him helping Thorin, they’d find Óin even faster.

Sighing, he tightened his grip on her for a moment, the closest thing to a hug he could manage. If Nori hadn’t been there, he’d have kissed her forehead, or at least touched his to hers, but Nori was almost more terrifying than Dwalin. And he knew she’d kept at least one of her fleshing knives when they all disarmed themselves.

As gently as he could, he passed her over to Nori, waiting to be sure that she had a good grip on her and Belda’s weight wouldn’t overbalance her. After a moment, Nori waved a hand toward the barrels. “Oh, go on, we’re f—”

Abruptly, Belda let out a broken sob, then dissolved into a coughing fit at least as harsh as the one that had unbalanced her in the water. Nori’s eyes widened and she shot an alarmed glance at Kíli even as her free hand wrapped around Belda to rub her back like he had. Kíli didn’t know what to say, but after the initial shock, Nori nodded for him to go again.

Reluctantly, he did. Belda needed Óin.

* * *

 

Nori

 

Listening to her kit cough—feeling her cough—was bad enough, but then she started crying as Kíli walked away. Whether that was a coincidence or she knew he was leaving somehow, Nori wasn’t sure, but either way, all she could do was wait for the fit to end.

It lasted for several minutes, long enough that Kíli and Thorin had freed Bofur, Dwalin, Glóin, and found one of the barrels of weapons before it even began to ebb. While she was winding down, Dwalin wobbled to his feet and over to them.

Nori knew it was for the best if her kit had her Uhdad, but a sense of loss as keen as a blade still struck her. But he only looked at them for a moment, then knelt on Nori’s side—behind Belda—and touched his forehead gently to Nori’s. She leaned into the touch automatically, eyes falling closed, but looked at him when he drew back.

He nodded to himself, glancing at the barrels. “I should help them. The more people working…”

“The quicker we’re done,” she finished, “the quicker she can get help.” He nodded again, eyes soft, and she promised, “I’ll keep her safe.”

At that, a ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I know you will.” Still watching her—both of them—he stood, paused for a long moment, then squared his shoulders and turned away in a motion too quick to be casual. She knew that motion. She’d seen that motion any number of times. That was his ‘I’d do anything to stay, but I can’t, and I’ll go mad if I keep staring’ motion.

How much attention she’d always paid to him probably should have been a clue he was her One, in hindsight.

But finally, Belda’s cough died off, and relief flooded Nori.

“Why’d you leave?”

Quickly followed by confusion, and concern. She hadn’t left. Shushing her softly, she started rocking gently from side to side; it had helped Ori when he was a toddler, maybe it would help Belda while she was sick. “I’m here, love, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Weakly, Belda tipped her head back—which was more letting gravity tip it than anything else, but it worked, so who was Nori to judge—to look at Nori with eyes filled with pain and filling with tears. “No, when Da— af’er Da stopped screaming.” Nori’s breath caught in her throat; what was she talking about? Voice growing higher and thicker as she began to cry, Belda went on, “Why did you leave me? Mum, I was so scared.”

Nori’s breath froze entirely. Mum. All it took was one word, and she was torn in half.

She knew that that had been what Belda called her mother before she died, which—combined with how she was sweating and how glassy her eyes were even before she started crying—meant that she was delirious, she thought Nori was Belladonna.

But she wanted that. She hadn’t even admitted it to herself yet, but she wanted that, wanted to be that for Belda. She already thought of Belda as ‘her’ kit, her daughter, and she wanted Belda to call her ‘Amad’ so badly it hurt.

Right now wasn’t the time. Holding her a bit tighter, she shushed her again. “I’m right here, love, I’m not going anywhere.” Her voice broke on the last few words, and she had to blink away a blur.

Belda’s brow furrowed, her tears slowing in the face of her confusion. “But you always do.” She said it so matter-of-factly that Nori’s heart broke for her all over again. “You always leave, for months and months and m…”

Crying again, she trailed off, and Nori couldn’t help but hold her even tighter, wishing she could just… But she could, a little bit, couldn’t she? It would be a bit of a lie, but not much of one. Just while she was sick. Keeping her own tears out of her voice as best as she could, she told her, “Well, from now on, I’ll never leave again. You hear that? Your Mum promises to never leave again.”

Oh, and she meant so many things with that ‘your Mum’. Belda being sick, maybe she wouldn’t catch it. Still crying, Belda met Nori’s eyes again, such timidity in her face that Nori wished Belladonna was still alive so that she could kill her herself. Anyone who instilled that much doubt in their own child wasn’t worth the rock they stood on. Voice tiny and afraid and hopeful despite that, Belda whispered, “Promise?”

She only meant that ‘Belladonna’ promised not to leave, but Nori had meant so many things with that promise, and one of them was that she would be Belda’s Amad. Whether or not Belda ever called her ‘Amad’, Belda was her daughter, her Nâthu-ib-Banth. Vision blurring again, she swallowed back the lump in her throat and leaned down to tap her forehead gently against Belda’s. “I promise, kit.”

Drawing back, she watched as Belda’s eyes closed and her expression cleared, head slipping down a bit to rest more fully against Nori. Thinking that she would sleep, Nori looked toward the barrels, but only just had time to see that all the Company was out—though a third were still insensible—and they’d found the rest of the weapons before Belda shook like she’d start crying again.

Looking toward her, she saw that Belda’s eyes were still closed, but her expression was stricken. “I’m sorry I’m not brave like you.”

It was only a whisper, but Nori still had to smother a scoff— or perhaps it was a guffaw. “What do you mean, love? You’re braver than any of us.” Running headfirst into danger didn’t take any sort of bravery if you knew there was a almost-certain chance you’d come out in one piece. But Belda didn’t know that, she never did—most of the time, from what she and the Company had told Nori, she barely came out at all—and yet she still never hesitated. That was keener courage than was held by any Dwarf Nori knew, and certainly more than Nori herself.

But Belda only looked more upset, and then began to cry. “No, I’m not, I’m scared of the wolves.” A sob brought on a fresh fit of coughing, but Nori didn’t get the chance to ask what wolves she was talking about before she went on between coughs, “It— It hurt— whe— when they b— bit me— I d— I don’t want th— them— to b— bite me a— again—”

Rubbing her back, Nori shook her head. “Kit, what wolves?”

She didn’t answer, though she stopped coughing, and Nori was about to repeat her question when she rocked a bit further than usual and Belda’s head lolled back.

Her heart stopped. “Belda?” She didn’t answer; heart kicking into double-time, she cupped her cheek with her free hand, ignoring the sweat clinging to Belda’s skin, and turned her face toward Nori’s. “Belda!”

She still didn’t answer, and now Nori could see that her face was slack despite her trembling and her lips were tinted blue—she’d been too distracted to notice before, but that—no, that—

Heart in her throat, she croaked, “Dwalin—” That wasn’t enough, he hadn’t heard— sucking in a frantic breath, she screamed.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

“DWALIN!”

Blood freezing in an instant, he was running to Nori before he knew he was moving.

He crashed to his knees beside her, taking in the scene in a glance—Belda lifeless, Nori frantic—even as he held his hand over Belda’s mouth.

“She was talking a minute ago, she was awake, and then she just—”

A faint gust of air—almost too faint to feel—brushed his fingers, and he nearly sobbed. “She’s alive—”

Nori let out a sob of her own, cradling Belda even closer. “But why— what happened—”

Kíli crashed down on Dwalin’s other side, already speaking before he hit the ground. “What happened— is she—”

“Alive,” Dwalin interrupted, “but—”

Howling, far too close for comfort, cut him off.

“Wolves.”

Automatically, Dwalin corrected Nori’s whisper, “Wargs.”

“Orcs,” Kíli hissed. He blanched an instant later. “My sword—”

“The second barrel— go!” As the pup bolted, Dwalin pushed to his feet and drew Grasper and Keeper. Motion caught his eye; he couldn’t help an incredulous exclamation to see Nori laying Belda on the ground. “What are you doing?!”

She glared at him as she stood, eyes shining. “You aren’t the only one who can fight. I’m protecting her.”

She drew two knives out of seemingly nowhere as she spoke; despite himself, Dwalin felt himself calm slightly. He’d seen her fight. He knew how capable she was. And he knew how much safer Belda would be with the both of them protecting her.

He gave Nori a short nod—which she returned—and they moved to stand between Belda and the howling.

An instant later, the Orcs swarmed out of the trees.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

Kíli’d barely grabbed his quiver before the Orcs charged, but he felled three Orcs before any of them could reach the Company; their wargs were faster, and one might have reached Bombur if Bifur hadn’t been guarding him. Like Bombur, Dori, Óin, and Glóin were still mostly senseless, but they were all near the water, at least.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dwalin and Nori circling Belda, fending off the Orcs, but he didn’t have much time to think of them. He had to think of himself.

Swinging his bow over his shoulder automatically, he drew his sword just as the first Orc reached him; he parried its strike easily and sunk his sword a few inches into its chest, pulling it out and spinning away from another attack a moment later.

Following the spin through, he struck at the Orc who’d been behind him, but missed; it charged him, leering, but fell on its face an instant later, a dagger sunk hilt-deep in its back. Kíli only just had time to meet Fíli’s eyes before he had to move again, striking down two more Orcs in as many seconds.

**“Go! Tell Azog we found the dragon-Halfling!”**

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Fíli froze. Dragon?

* * *

 

Ori

 

Ori cut down an Orc that had almost killed Fíli; why had she stopped like that?!

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Dwalin’s heart nearly stopped; how did they know?!

* * *

 

Balin

 

Balin nearly dropped his sword; had that Orc just said—

* * *

 

Thorin

 

Thorin kept fighting automatically, but the words were impossible to ignore. Did that mean…

* * *

 

Kíli

 

Ignoring the nonsensical title, Kíli quick-stepped back, out of the immediate field of battle and drew his bow, only giving himself an instant to aim before he loosed an arrow at the Orc who was riding away.

An instant after he saw it fall, something hit his thigh.

Fíli screamed his name, but he barely heard her. Looking down, he almost thought he was dreaming for a moment; why else would there be a stick poking out of his leg?

But it wasn’t a stick, and an instant later, agony washed over him and he crashed to the ground.

Hot iron burst in his mouth as he bit his cheek, a scream heavy in his chest, but he wouldn’t scream, he would not scream, he would not—

* * *

 

Thorin

 

A guttural, bloodcurdling scream came from behind Thorin as he threw his sword to impale the last Orc. At the sound, he was suddenly at Azanulbizar again, in the medical tent, hearing Dwarves with their teeth clamped down on daggers and hilts scream past the obstruction as bones were set, limbs were amputated, and surgery was done, all without so much as a drop of anything to dull the pain.

If nothing else, it got Óin on his feet; he reached Kíli before Thorin did. “Roll him.”

Fíli, already beside her brother, bit back a sob and grabbed his far arm, while Ori moved to his other side and prepared to lift from under the side of his chest; stomach already roiling, Thorin took hold of Kíli’s ankles, then counted down quickly. “Three, two, one—”

Kíli screamed again as they rolled him onto his side, bucking under their hands; Thorin held his legs still while Óin examined him. Noticing that Kíli had nothing in his mouth, a part of Thorin couldn’t help a morbid pride, that his sister-son was strong enough to try to keep from screaming even when he was in agony.

Thorin had had wounds like that before. He knew how painful they were.

Sounding relieved, Óin announced, “It went through.”

Thorin was relieved, as well—that meant Óin wouldn’t have to cut into Kíli’s leg to find the head—but he dreaded what would come next. Kíli bucked again, a strangled moan slipping out of clenched teeth, as Óin took hold of the shaft and easily pulled the arrowhead off; Dwarven arrows were made to be sturdy, but Orcs used tendons and sinew to tether the heads to the shafts, so that if a well-meaning Dwarf tried to pull out the arrow, the head would separate and be left inside the wound.

Kíli screamed, when Óin pulled the shaft out the way it had gone in. Almost before he’d tossed the shaft aside, Ori was already offering his scarf to the healer. Nodding, Óin took it and bound the wound swiftly, but Thorin had seen how it bled: slowly, steadily. Not gushing, not pouring. He wouldn’t bleed out before they could reach better supplies.

Once Óin stood, Thorin moved to sit where his sister-son could see him; after lowering him onto his back again, Ori vacated his spot by Kíli’s side to stand beside Fíli, instead, and Thorin sent a grateful glance at him as he took the spot. Ori inclined his head to him, eyes tight, and squeezed Fíli’s shoulder once before walking off toward Dori.

Thorin placed a hand on Kíli’s shoulder, observing him for a moment. His face was tight, breathing shaky and strained, but the lines around his eyes and mouth were easing, slowly, and it sounded as though he were trying to steady his breathing. As his improved, so did Fíli’s; likewise, Thorin felt the tightness in his chest loosen as he saw that Kíli would recover, given time.

After a minute or so, he opened his eyes, meeting Thorin’s despite the slight glaze in his. “Everyone?”

Another swell of morbid pride rose in Thorin, and he squeezed Kíli’s shoulder reassuringly. “They’re well.”

Fíli half-laughed, voice thick. “Just your luck, isn’t it? The rest of us are fine— it’s only you who got hurt.”

Kíli’s lips twitched in a faint smile, but in another instant, his mirth was swept away by alarm. “No, Belda— Has Óin—”

“Thorin!” Looking automatically toward Balin, he bit back a growl. If it weren’t important, Balin wouldn’t be calling him.

Sighing, he squeezed Kíli’s shoulder again and stood. Balin was standing over an Orc with an arrow protruding out of its chest—the one Kíli had shot, then—something dark and hurt and stricken in his expression.

Once Thorin was beside him, Balin kicked the Orc, more viciously than Thorin would have expected. “Say it again.”

Thorin frowned at Balin—since when did they interrogate Orcs?—but put the tip of his sword at the Orc’s throat when it didn’t answer. “Do as he says and you’ll have a quick death.”

Coughing wetly, black blood on its lips, it grinned. “I was just surprised any Dwarves would guard a dragon like that.”

Its hand gestured limply in the general direction of Dwalin, Nori, and Belda. ‘Dragon-Halfling’, the other Orc had said. Eyes narrowing, Thorin drew his sword back a fraction. “I see no dragon.”

The Orc laughed—a horrible sound, hacking and wet with blood—and lolled its head on the grass in an approximation of a shake. “Not see, not yet. That’s how they do it. They wait ’til you’re close, then all of a sudden there’s a bear—or a dragon—in their place.”

Balin snapped, “That’s impossible!”

The Orc actually raised its head an inch or so with the force of its snarl. “Tell that to Golfimbul.” The name wasn’t familiar; Thorin and Balin exchanged a confused glance as the Orc let its head fall back onto the ground, voice starting to slur. “We made it all the way past the Rangers, all the way into the Shire, and here comes a Halfling on a horse. Knocked Golfimbul’s head clean off, he did. We thought we could run, but then all of a sudden there’s a bear chasing us. Killed all of us but me— and I had to hide under the bodies, hold my breath until it was safe. I saw that bear disappear and the Halfling take its place, and I smelled it. I smelled the bear and it was the Halfling. Doesn’t matter if no one believes me, I smelled it. That smell doesn’t change. And that one,” its head lolled in Belda’s direction, “that’s a dragon. And you’re taking it to your treasure?”

It laughed, the sound more horrible than before, then looked Thorin in the eye with a vicious grin. “You should kill it now, while it’s weak.”

An axe lodged in its head, abruptly; startled, Thorin stepped back, looking toward the direction from which the axe had flown, and saw Dwalin, an axe in his left hand, his right hand empty, staring at the now-dead Orc with nothing less than pure, utter hatred. But Thorin couldn’t help but notice that he was pale, that there was fear in his face, as well as loathing.

Helplessly, Thorin shook his head. “No,” the first word was nothing more than a breath, but he raised his voice as he stalked toward his friend, “no, tell me it was a lie. Tell me—”

But he could see it in Dwalin’s face, in how he paled a shade further and moved between Thorin and Belda, how his eye twitched the way it always did when he was about to lie to Thorin. He could lie to anyone else without a hint of dishonesty, but since they were Striplings, he’d never been able to lie to Thorin.

“Then it’s true.” Fíli was standing behind Thorin, shock fading into a disgusted grimace as she looked toward Belda. “She’s a dragon.”

Kíli, standing partway between Fíli and Belda with his arm around Ori’s neck, snapped, “Don’t be ridiculous— that’s not possible!”

But Ori—holding up Kíli effortlessly—looked grim, Thorin noticed. Fíli obviously noticed, as well, and inhaled sharply; the entire Company was drifting closer, drawn in by the raised voices. “That’s what you found out— that’s why you changed toward her, in Mirkwood— but why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Ori shifted his weight uncomfortably, misery edging into his expression. “I wanted to.”

Dori let loose a shuddering breath. “You were so sure that she meant Nori harm— did she threaten you?”

Quickly, Fíli added, “Or blackmail?”

Ori looked between them, eyes wide; Kíli shoved away from him, barely keeping his feet. “You’re all— this isn’t— it’s not— it can’t be—” Dwalin took a few steps toward him, reaching out to steady him, but he jerked away, breathing harsh and brow knotted.

Fíli slid an arm around his back, letting him lean on her, and spoke soothingly to Ori. “It’s all right. No one will blame you.”

Stepping forward, Thorin shot a quelling glance at Fíli. “Let the man speak for himself.”

* * *

 

[Ori](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gone-im-gone-live/1271398099?i=1271398869)

 

Thorin turned toward him expectantly, but Ori could barely think past Thorin’s statement.

‘Man’. Not ‘boy’, not ‘child’, not ‘runt’, but ‘man’.

And the others— they were all looking at him like…

Like he was an equal, even if he’d messed up.

If he defended Belda, if he stood against them…

He still remembered living on the road with Nori and Dori. He’d been twenty-two when they’d settled in Ered Luin, and he’d met Striplings who didn’t always keep their bags packed, who’d known their friends all their lives, who were as much a part of the city as the buildings, and he’d wanted that. And then he’d grown up and then he’d still been Ori the freak, Ori the loner, Ori the bookworm. Even among the other scribes, he was the odd one out.

He had a chance, now, to be one of them. To keep their respect, to stay their equal, to keep Fíli’s respect, to keep Thorin’s good opinion.

If he took it.

Guilt stabbed at him, but he shoved it away.

Belda could take care of herself.

* * *

 

Nori

 

Quietly, Ori confirmed, “The story she told, about the dragon. I guessed, and the next morning she admitted it.” He looked away from Nori, toward Kíli, who was staring at him, horror-struck; Nori felt much the same. She couldn’t even move. “She’s a dragon. I don’t know how, but it’s true. She… She didn’t threaten to hurt me. She… It was blackmail. I should’ve said, I know, but I couldn’t…”

Glóin shook his head with a shudder. “No explanation needed, lad. There’s always been something inhuman about her.”

Dwalin spat on the ground, glaring at Glóin; Nori couldn’t look at him, she couldn’t— couldn’t— “You coward.”

“Then it’s true?” Nori had never seen Balin look so horrified before.

Thorin, though, looked bloody furious. “You—”

He let loose a blistering series of curses; he was starting to sound as though he were underwater— or maybe Nori was the one underwater. She was drowning, she knew that, drowning in memories—in thoughts—of Belda—

How could she be— be a monster? How could—

But hadn’t Nori been so impressed with how well she could pull off a long con? And she’d lost three months; who was to say there hadn’t been signs before then?

Who was to say that she hadn’t wanted Nori to lose her memory.

Memories swarmed her—of Belda being so distraught, so afraid, so sweet; of Belda fighting, lying through her teeth, grinning at the idea of killing enough spiders to have named her little sword—and she couldn’t— It was too much, she couldn’t—

“WHAT DOES IT MATTER?!?” She jolted, heart racing as Dwalin continued roaring at Thorin, “DRAGON OR NOT, SHE’S MY DAUGHTER!” Silence fell. Looking darkly at each member of the Company but Nori, he promised grimly, “And I’ll let any of you lay a finger on her over my dead body.”

But that— that meant—

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

“You knew?”

He turned to look at Nori, heart already plummeting at the hurt in her whisper. Just minutes ago, they’d fought side-by-side on the shore, like two halves of a whole, so in tune that he’d almost thought she could read his mind. “Nori…”

“No,” she waved a hand sharply, eyes still wounded, “you’ve been lying to me—to everyone— how long?” When he didn’t answer right away, she took a step closer and snarled, “How long?”

Chest tight, fists clenched, he admitted, “Since Beorn’s. She told me after I gave her my bead.”

Nori’s eyes unfocused; he was just close enough to hear her whisper, “That’s why…”

If she said anything more, it was lost under Balin’s anguished, “Three months— You’ve been lying about this for three months?!?”

Dwalin looked toward his brother desperately. “I wanted her to tell all of you— she was terrified—”

Fíli cut him off harshly. “For good reason! She’s a dragon, Dwalin! You, of all people—”

Thorin agreed grimly, “You know what a dragon did to us.”

“She’s not—”

“Not a dragon?”

He glared at Glóin. “She is a dragon, but—”

“No,” Thorin roared, “there is no ‘but’, not in this! You lied, Dwalin, to your king!” Breathing heavily, Thorin fixed Dwalin with a stare so raging it was cold. “If I were my grandfather, I would execute you for treason here and now. I would cleave your head from your shoulders myself and I would leave you for the crows, with your daughter.” Deliberately, he straightened to his full height, looking at Dwalin as dispassionately as he would any criminal. “But I am not my grandfather.” His gaze dropped to Belda, still blank and cold. “And even without a Black Arrow, Smaug isn’t invulnerable.”

Dwalin’s grip on Keeper tightened. “If you mean to send her in against her will—”

“She’ll go in on her own.” Dwalin and Thorin both looked to Ori. Disappointment twisted with disgust as he looked at the scribe; he’d thought he cared for Belda, at least a little. Ori was still a bit pale, but he met Thorin’s eyes unflinchingly. “She’s been throwing herself into danger for us since we met her. Order her to fight Smaug, as the leader of her pack, and she’ll do it willingly.”

Thorin nodded thoughtfully; exasperation joining his disgust, Dwalin shouted, “She was already planning to kill him for you!”

Fíli sneered at him. “That’s likely.”

Kíli, still leaning on her, had his head hanging, and he hadn’t responded to anything since Ori confirmed the truth.

Thorin shook his head. “Enough of this. Lake-Town is our only option. Drop your weapons.”

Dwalin’s grip tightened on Keeper automatically.

Thorin glared at him. “Disarm yourself, or I’ll reconsider my sentencing.”

He could do whatever he liked to Dwalin, it wouldn’t change a thing, but—

Belda needed help. Óin had recognized her symptoms as Winter Fever, something he’d heard of Men dying from, but Dwarves didn’t fall ill. Óin couldn’t help her.

But there had to be a healer in Lake-Town. In the entire city, there had to be one, at least, who could treat her.

But as certain as Dwalin was that Thorin could be reasoned with once he calmed down, he was doubly so that Thorin would carry out his threat to leave both of them for dead if Dwalin challenged him now. If Belda were awake, maybe she could shout him down, but she wasn’t.

And Dwalin didn’t have the words.

It went against everything he’d ever learned, ever lived through, every ounce of his better judgement, but he tossed Keeper aside. Holding Thorin’s eyes, he pulled off his knuckle-dusters and tossed them aside, too. “You’d better grab those. If there’s an attack, you’ll want me helping you.”

Thorin’s jaw tightened—both of them knew Dwalin was twice the warrior as half of the Company—but he just jerked his head toward Belda. “Either she travels under her own power or you carry her.”

Which only left one option. Dwalin was fine with that; even if she were awake, he’d insist on carrying her. Before he picked her up, though, he crossed to the barrels and peered inside the first few, pulling out her bag once he found it. He’d seen her pack it into Kíli’s barrel, though he still wasn’t sure what was in there.

Gathering her gently up, he met Thorin’s eyes, daring him to find fault with anything he’d done. Thorin just jerked his head toward Lake-Town, and Dwalin understood the command implicit in the gesture: traitors, traditionally, were escorted in the center of a group, so that they never went unobserved.

He strode forward with his head held high; he’d done nothing wrong. But as the Company surrounded him, he saw Nori move forward, to the head of the line—where she wouldn’t be able to see him—and his heart clenched.

He still hadn’t done anything wrong—telling Nori against Belda’s wishes would have been as wrong as lying to them all had been—but he regretted not convincing Belda to tell her, if not anyone else.

But mostly, it was that she was his One, she and Belda were so close, and she was turning her back on them. Ones weren’t ironclad—rejection was uncommon, but nowhere near unheard of—but he’d thought—

He’d hoped—

Eyes burning, he forced himself to think of Belda as they walked on toward Lake-town, only of Belda.

And he left his heart, bleeding and broken, on the shore where they’d defended their kit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! (Or Happy Holidays if you don't celebrate Christmas, I guess, but I do, so Merry Christmas!)  
> Notes: 1) Just for clarity's sake, it's only the royal Durins (and Balin and Dwalin) who understand Black Speech. 2) Come on, did you really think I'd cut out Kíli's injury? Although, those of you who've seen The Woodsman (it's a prequel play to the Wizard of Oz, how the Tin Woodsman got that way; don't judge, it's really good), you know his scream at the very end, after he's rusted? Yeah, that's what I'm imagining Kíli doing. Except with more pain. 3) They don't have the terminology to say it, but the arrow missed any of the main arteries and veins it might have hit, and it missed his bone, too; apparently, if an arrow like the Orcs have scraped on bone, it would actually bend the tip of the arrow until it was a hook, and then whoever was pulling the arrowhead out would have to stick practically their whole hand in the wound to make sure that the hook didn't catch on anything on the way out. 4) My headcanon is that Elf-Orcs are still immortal, while Man-Orcs aren't; this is an Elf-Orc, hence the enhanced senses. And yeah, there was more to the story than Bullroarer told his kids. 5) I actually have recommended listening for one section of this. Ori's section, where he's deciding what to do, I have a link to the song on his name. 6) 'Winter Fever' is an old name for pneumonia. Next chapter, you'll see Lake-Town calls it 'Lung Fever', and I have a reason for that: aside from the fact that of course two places hundreds of miles apart would have different names for it, in Eriador, people mostly catch it virally, or because of the cold, hence why it's 'Winter' Fever. But Lake-Town, since it's on a *Lake*, mostly sees cases because of water inhalation like happened to Belda, so it's 'Lung' Fever.  
> Next chapter early tomorrow!  
> À demain!


	52. Kíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath.

Kíli’s head was pounding— not from the pain, so much—that had ebbed after the first few minutes—but from the sheer—

She was a dragon.

Belda—the woman he loved—who he’d cradled and kissed and snogged—who was brave and good and too selfless for her own good—who got so terrifyingly angry sometimes and other times sobbed into her father’s shirt and other times laughed and smiled like she didn’t have a care in the world—who’d risked her life for them too many times to count—who was so precious to him—who was sick, maybe dying—who’d been lying to him this entire time—who didn’t care that he was a prince, didn’t care that he liked being a hunter—who he couldn’t stand the thought of losing, even now—was a dragon.

She was like Smaug.

Dragons were pure evil, every Dwarf knew it—

But this was Belda.

But she was like Smaug.

But she couldn’t be—

But she couldn’t not be—

His head pounded, and his leg throbbed. He just wanted to sleep.

* * *

 

Nori

 

The guardhouse was getting closer. Part of Nori didn’t want it to— wanted everything to just stop, just for a few hours so she could think.

She couldn’t think, looking at him. She never walked behind him—even when he arrested her, he kept her in front of him so he could keep an eye on her—and seeing him brought on too many— too much—

Too many thoughts, too many memories, too many dreams and daydreams and wishes—

Too much anger, too much hurt, too much betrayal, too much love and loss and pain—

But walking in front of him wasn’t any better; the others—Fíli and Glóin, especially—were talking about him, about Belda, about how disgusting they both were, and Nori—

Nori didn’t know what to do— what to think— what to feel—

Just a few hours— why couldn’t everything just stop for a few hours— or why couldn’t it all already be over and done with— decided, one way or another— why couldn’t— why—

Why couldn’t her life ever be simple?

Why was her heart trampled every time she held it out?

Why—

She couldn’t think.

She walked.

* * *

 

Ori

 

Regret had settled—sharp and thorny—in his gut as soon as he spoke against Belda.

He hadn’t lied— he hadn’t— it had all been true— she never threatened to hurt him, even in Rivendell— and there had been blackmail, in Mirkwood— it just— it had been him, doing the blackmailing. Not the other way around.

And now they thought she was pure evil— but they would have thought that anyway— but half the things Fíli was saying—and Glóin and Bombur—were based on what he’d said.

And Kíli wasn’t saying anything. The look on his face when Ori said those things about Belda—

Heartbreak was too mild a word. He hadn’t looked broken, he’d looked shattered. He’d looked devastated.

And it had been minutes, now, and he still hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t even moved, except when Fíli—or Ori, supporting him on the other side from Fíli—prompted him to.

And Belda was so sick. He’d thought she looked wretched in the dungeons— she looked a thousand times worse now— and what Thorin had said— he hadn’t thought he was capable of something that cruel. He hadn’t thought any of them were. But Fíli had said—only once, but he’d heard it—that it would ‘serve them right’.

How could she say that? How could she even think that?

But what would he have said, the morning Belda admitted it? Would he have thought it was too far then?

Was he any different from them?

The day Belda and Nori had climbed the tree—when he’d grabbed Belda and she’d looked so terrified, Mahal, she’d actually thought he would attack her, hadn’t she?—Dori had threatened to end his and Fíli’s courtship if he didn’t back off. That had been such a horrible thought that he’d agreed, just to avoid losing her.

But now…

He wasn’t sure he wanted this.

But they were Ones—that had to mean they were made for each other—didn’t that mean he did want to be with her?

He was giving himself a headache. But part of him wasn’t sure he didn’t deserve it.

* * *

 

Thorin

 

Glaring at Dwalin’s back, Thorin steeled himself for what he’d have to do in Lake-Town. Their business was none of the Men’s concern—he’d tell them that he’d been betrayed by a member of his own Company when Orcs flew—so he’d avoid talking to Dwalin. He’d avoid looking at Dwalin. He’d avoid any mention—any thought—of him, because if he let himself think of him—

—the worst betrayal he’d ever felt, the worst shock— how could he turn against him, and for a dragon—

—he’d fall apart. He couldn’t lie to save his life. Not about this.

And as for her—

—not as keen, but the pain was still there— they’d been friends— he’d trusted her—he’d told her things he’d never— and she’d lied to him, lied to his face, lied about everything—

—she had no name. He would not acknowledge her, he would not look at her, think of her, speak to her, nothing. She was nameless, to him. She would fight Smaug, and she would kill him.

And he wasn’t sure he’d care if she didn’t survive.

* * *

 

Bard

 

A chorus of raucous laughter filled the guard-hut, and Bard forced a smile. He had no idea what had been said, but evidently, he’d acted well enough to assuage the other guards. The conversation continued, and he continued ignoring it.

When he was eighteen and an idiot, he’d thought they were clever, that they knew so much about the world. Now he was twenty-three, married to a woman who was more than outspoken enough to set his perception of women’s thoughts straight, father of a girl who was already so precious to him, and still wearing a black armband for his father, hidden under his jacket.

It had been eight months, since his father’s death. More than anything, Bard wished he had lived to see his granddaughter’s birth.

But Sigurd had never held the people’s respect. They’d laughed at him for trading pleasantries with sparrows and pretended they didn’t take the advice on fishing and the weather that he passed on from the birds. They’d sneered at him for acting ‘lordly’ and ignored that had the dragon never come, he would be Lord of Dale. They’d scoffed at him for being penniless and refused to work with or hire him.

That Bard had named his daughter, his Sigrid, after Sigurd was strange enough, to them. That Bard was still mourning him after so many months would be enough for him to lose what little standing he’d managed to scrape together.

He was under no illusions that the way Sigurd (and everyone connected to him) was treated by the town was in any way his fault, but he remembered his childhood well. He remembered going to bed hungry because there was no work anyone would give Sigurd. He remembered being eleven and practicing with his father’s bow (though without arrows) in the middle of the night because the house was too quiet with only his father’s breathing.

Their circumstances hadn’t been his father’s fault. But Bard had the opportunity to provide for his family the way his father hadn’t been able to. He’d always been the quiet sort, always preferring to think carefully before he acted, and because of that, he was seen as less ‘funny’ than Sigurd, not as touched. People still laughed at him for his father’s actions, but it was behind his back, not to his face, and they were willing to work with him, though they still kept their distance overall. As long as he stayed in the crowd, didn’t go against the current, they tolerated him.

And to keep food on the table, to keep his wife and daughter fed and clothed and warm, he would ignore as many disgusting conversations as he had to.

Motion in the corner of his eye had him jumping to his feet, hand flying to his sword, before he’d even properly seen the Dwarf. The others jumped up, as well, and shouted, “Who are you and what do you want?!”

In a loud voice—one that filled the hut without being deafening and rang without grating, one that had to have been taught, or at least practiced over years—the Dwarf answered, “Thorin son of Thrain son of Thrór, King under the Mountain!”

Despite his obvious bedragglement, he looked it. There was a proud edge to his bearing that spoke to his being accustomed to holding authority, and there was a dangerous glint in his eye that seemed to warn away anyone who even thought of questioning his claim. The sword at his belt made the warning more problematic.

“I have come back. I wish to see the Master of your town!” Despite his polite wording, there was nothing less than a command in his tone, and Bard stayed where he was as some of the more stupid of the guards ran outside as though they expected to see ‘rivers golden run’ already.

Bard shifted his attention to the three figures standing beside ‘Thorin’, if that was who he truly was. One—Bard saw the makeshift bandage around his leg, but he was standing on his own—shared ‘Thorin’s’ dark coloring, though his eyes were as black as his hair and his beard was nothing to speak of. He was two, perhaps three inches shorter, as well, but given the length of his beard, Bard wasn’t sure he’d reached his final height yet. He was a bit broader than ‘Thorin’, though, and he carried a quiver and bow as well as a sword.

The second was slimmer and shorter, but with more of a beard than the archer, though still not as long as ‘Thorin’s’ obviously-trimmed hair. His golden hair—a few shades lighter than Rûna’s—might have made Bard think he was no relation to ‘Thorin’ or the archer, but his eyes were the same blue as ‘Thorin’s’, and the way he was standing, angled in such a way that he could move to the archer’s defense as easily as catch him if he fell, was similar to the way Bard had seen brothers move. There were two swords on his belt.

The third was the same height as the blond—and as slim— with short, reddish hair, and a beard trimmed as ‘Thorin’s’ was. Bard doubted he was related to any of the others, but he stood positioned to catch the archer in an instant if need be. He held no obvious weapons, but Bard had heard enough legends of Dwarven warriors to be wary anyway.

Fingering his hilt, he raised his voice to be heard over the clamor of the other guards. “And who are these?”

‘Thorin’s’ eyes turned on Bard, but he’d had twenty-three years to learn how to hold a mask against onlookers’ scorn. He held it now. “The sons of my father’s daughter, Fíli,” the blond lifted his chin a fraction, “and Kíli,” the archer’s jaw tightened, “and our cousin, Ori,” the redhead looked at ‘Thorin’ with a hint of surprise, but not enough to make Bard think it was a lie, only that ‘Ori’ hadn’t expected to be included, for whatever reason, “of the race of Durin.”

Sigurd had passed down enough that Bard knew that Erebor’s succession passed through Durin’s Line, but such claims were easy to make and difficult to disprove, especially as there were no Men alive who remembered the Dwarves of Erebor.

But they would have to be brought before the Master regardless. Bard didn’t bother to hide his skepticism as he held ‘Thorin’s’ eyes. “If you come in peace, lay down your arms.”

All four Dwarves’ jaws tightened, but ‘Thorin’ nodded regally. “We will, with the certainty that they will be returned to us on our departure. The roads are treacherous.”

As he spoke, he withdrew his sword—sheath and all—from his belt and held it out with the air of a king deigning to acknowledge an inferior. The other three followed suit—‘Ori’ pulled a slingshot from somewhere—and the guards collected them carefully.

As Bard was about to speak again, he realized ‘Fíli’ was pulling more daggers from his jacket, and produced a steady stream of knives for nearly two minutes. Bard wasn’t the only one who was distracted by the sight, though he was confident that he was the only one who found it reminiscent of pulling neverending pins out of his wife’s hair as he helped her take it down at night. Most of the older guards were married, but by the way they spoke about their wives, Bard doubted they even bothered to learn when their wives arranged their hair, let alone how.

Bard pitied them. Some of the moments he treasured most with Rûna had been while they got ready for bed.

Only some of them, but what else they did in their bedroom was no one’s business but theirs.

Once ‘Fíli’ held up his hands to indicate that he’d exhausted his arms (and evidently, he was a walking armory most of the time; Sowry was barely holding onto all of the daggers), ‘Thorin’ added, “Our companions outside will surrender their weapons, as well, once told. Take us to your Master!”

A few of the guards exchanged uneasy glances. Bard responded flatly, “He’s at feast.”

‘Fíli’ burst out, “Then all the more reason to take us to him! We are worn and famished after our long road and my brother needs a healer!”

‘Kíli’ added, much more quietly, “So does Belda.”

Bard frowned. “‘Belda’?”

‘Thorin’s’ jaw tightened; Bard didn’t look away from him, but he saw ‘Fíli’s’ expression darken out of the corner of his eye. “One of our Company. She took ill in the last day.”

That they hadn’t begun with that was strange, but given Dwarves’ infamous distrust of non-Dwarves, Bard supposed it could have been an effort to protect her. Glancing at the rest of the guard, he was surprised to see most of them looking to him. He wasn’t the highest ranked in all the guard—he wasn’t even the highest ranked in the room—but no one had shut him down when he took the lead. No one had fought him, no one had argued, no one had insisted on taking over. He wasn’t so foolish to think that his charisma alone had swayed them—if they hadn’t been so shocked to see the Dwarves, things would have been very different—but all the same, he wasn’t so foolish to think that it would last long. So until it was over, he’d do the best he could.

“Braga, Werner, Ragnar, Tollak, Sindre,” ‘Fíli’ and ‘Kíli’ flinched at the last name, not hugely, but enough for him to notice, “you’ll escort these Dwarves to the Master with me. Sowry, you’ll head up the process of relieving the rest of the Dwarves of their arms. Bring them to the main square once you’ve finished. Either they’ll be guests of the Master,” he met ‘Thorin’s’ gaze coolly, “or they’ll need to be taken into custody.”

‘Thorin’ narrowed his eyes, but didn’t argue, and they moved out of the guard-hut and onto the bridge. There was an entire troop of Dwarves waiting on the ground, all of them as bedraggled as the first four. One of them, his height marking him as much as how his bald head caught the light, was holding someone in his arms.

Frowning, Bard gestured for the guards to wait a moment, then moved closer to the group. A few shifted their weight defensively, but he stopped a few feet away, in any case. “You,” he pointed at the bald one, “come forward.”

After a moment, the Dwarf obeyed, something deeper than caution in his eyes. He stopped at the edge of the group, but it was close enough for Bard to see the girl in his arms, how she shook, how her lips were purple in the starlight, even with as dark-skinned as she was.

“Lung fever,” he murmured. He’d seen enough cases of it, fishermen coming to Rûna after they fell overboard and inhaled a bit of water, to know it on sight.

The bald Dwarf’s eyes widened slightly. “You know this sickness?”

Bard nodded. “My wife is a healer.” After a moment of thought, he nodded again. “Whether the Master allows you to stay or not, she’ll need to be treated. Walk ahead of me.”

More than a few of the Dwarves muttered under their breath, but the bald one himself obeyed quickly, almost eagerly.

So there was at least one Dwarf who wanted her treated above his own safety. Interesting.

The walk to the Great Hall wasn’t fast—‘Kíli’ began limping, subtly at first, but more as they walked on, and had to be supported by ‘Fíli’ and ‘Ori’—but they reached it fairly quickly, all things considered. Bard had enough time to notice that the bald one seemed not to be liked by the others; ‘Kíli’ didn’t seem to care—though he didn’t seem to care about much of anything—but ‘Fíli’ glared fiercely at the bald one’s back. ‘Ori’s’ expression was more complicated, and less easy to decipher. ‘Thorin’ was walking ahead of the other four, just behind Bard, and by the lines on his face, Bard guessed that scowling was his natural state and that nothing could be gleaned from the expression.

Excuses and explanations already on his lips, Bard pushed open the doors, only for ‘Thorin’ to loudly announce, “I am Thorin son of Thrain son of Thrór, King under the Mountain! I return!”

Bard barely suppressed a groan as the entire hall leapt to their feet—the Master had some trouble with it, as he weighed twice what Bard did, at least, but he managed it somehow—and the raft-Elves sprang to the Master. “These are prisoners of our king that have escaped, wandering vagabond Dwarves that could not give any good account of themselves, sneaking through the woods and molesting our people!”

Bard wished he didn’t have an audience, so that he could kick something, or possibly bang his head against the wall. Of course they were escaped prisoners. Suspicious, the Master asked, “Is this true?”

‘Thorin’ answered with the same dignity with which he’d listed his relatives’ names. “It is true that we were wrongfully waylaid by the Elvenking and imprisoned without cause as we journeyed back to our own land. But lock nor bar may hinder the homecoming spoken of old. Nor is this town in the Wood-Elves’ realm. I speak to the Master of the town of the Men of the Lake, not to the raft-men of the Elvenking.”

At that, Bard knew the Dwarf had won. The Master—aside from being odious in general—was a vain, proud man, and even if ‘Thorin’s’ implication that he was more important than Thranduil didn’t sway him, the songs and cheers filling the hall and outside would.

The people—for better or worse—knew that the Dwarves were there, and they believed their claims, and they believed the songs. Never mind that there was no way to be sure, never mind that the songs had been written by Men desperate to see things return to they way they had been, never mind that even if their claims were true, they were still fourteen—if Bard had counted right—against a bloody dragon.

And the Master was too addicted to the people’s favor to stand against them. Spreading his arms, he cried over the cheering, “Welcome, welcome, and thrice welcome, King under the Mountain!”

Magnanimously, he gave his own seat to ‘Thorin’, though the Dwarf spoke quietly with him under the cacophony.

After a few moments, the Master nodded, then spoke a few words to a servant standing near him. The servant nodded, then ran to Ove, who Bard only now realized was sitting against the wall near him, a half-empty tankard in his hand and the staining remnants of at least two tankards drying on his clothes. “The Master says the Dwarves are to be housed in the Manor House, sir, and that a healer’s to be brought there straightaway, to meet their injured.”

Ove nodded clumsily. “Righ’, tha’s…” He hiccuped.

Holding back a sneer at his Captain’s state, Bard suggested politely, “With your leave, sir, I can take care of the matter.”

Hiccuping again, he waved a hand. “Goo’, you do tha’.” Draining off his tankard, he slammed it down on the table beside him. “WENCH! MORE ALE!”

Teeth beginning to ache from how tightly his jaw was clenched, Bard ushered the Dwarves and guards outside again and closed the doors. “Braga, Werner, Sindre, have the Manor House prepared for guests. Ragnar, Tollak, escort the Dwarves there while I fetch Rûna.”

The Men nodded—he was still surprised none of them had tried to take charge yet—and the three groups split off, the three guards running ahead of the knot of Dwarves and Men, and Bard walking briskly in another direction entirely, towards his house.

It was in the oldest section of the town, tiny and run-down, but it was large enough for the three of them, and it was enough to keep them warm. He opened the door quietly, careful of the creaky floorboard just inside it, and picked his way down the stairs to their room. With how far they were from the town square, the commotion was muted enough that both the occupants were still fast asleep, Rûna curled around Sigrid in the middle of the bed.

Gently, he traced a finger over Rûna’s cheek and up to her temple, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She stirred blearily, a soft smile growing as she saw him, which he returned.

But his smile faded after a moment. Mindful of Sigrid, he spoke near-inaudibly. “There are patients that need you. One has Lung Fever.”

That woke her up. Handing Sigrid carefully to him—she fussed for a few moments, but went back to sleep, one hand twisted in his uniform—Rûna dressed quickly. “Who is it? Someone from town?”

He shook his head, rocking absentmindedly from side to side when Sigrid squirmed. “Dwarves.” Rûna looked sharply at him, brows raised, and he nodded. “They escaped from the Woodland Realm’s prison somehow, but they claim to be the rightful king of Erebor and his companions, so the Master—”

“Did what the Master always does and thought with his moneybags,” Rûna finished with near-tangible disgust. Bard smiled; half the reason they’d become friends as children was that not only did the two of them tend to think along the same lines, but she was fearless enough to defy the town’s scorn and spend time with him and his father.

She’d suggested Sigrid’s name, actually. He’d already been thinking of it, but he hadn’t said anything about it at that point, and he hadn’t thought of what form he wanted the name to take.

A moment later, she added, “Are they dangerous?”

He considered that for a few moments. “Not to a healer. One—supposedly one of the princes—has a limp; I think his bandage used to be a scarf, and with how much his condition declined just in the walk to the Great Hall, it can’t be anything but a recent injury. His brother seems desperate to see him tended to properly. As for the rest, they did disarm themselves voluntarily.” He shrugged faintly. “I don’t doubt they can be more dangerous than the entire guard combined, but it looks like they escaped from Thranduil with hardly more than the clothes on their backs. They’ll need supplies, which I would guess is why they came here. I can’t be certain, but there’s a good chance that they’ll pose us no threat so long as they aren’t provoked.”

Frowning, she nodded and grabbed her wrap, arranging it with the ease of habit. “And the one with Lung Fever, do you know how he fell ill?”

“She, and no. But it looks as though they traveled down the river.”

“So it could very well be from the water, not from anything else.” Brow furrowed, she moved closer and the two of them tucked Sigrid securely inside the wrap, holding their breath until she settled again into sleep. Relieved exhales leaving both of them, they bit back laughter as their eyes met. Brows quirking up, she kept her voice low. “I’m still going to ask you to hold Sigrid while I examine the sick woman, at least until I’m sure she isn’t contagious.”

Smiling fondly, he leaned in for a quick kiss. “I expected nothing less.” Catching his sleeve, she pulled him back for a longer, though still chaste kiss. Warmth filling him, he pulled her against him, careful of Sigrid, and kissed the corner of her mouth as he finally drew back. “Time to go.”

She nodded, expression firming into the focused bearing she always wore while she worked. “Time to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! 🎉🎊🎁🎉❄️❄️❄️❄️  
> Notes: 1) Don't be too harsh on Ori. Yeah, he majorly messed up, but I've got plans for him. You'll see. 2) I like Bard. And when he says 'not as touched', for those of you who aren't sure what that means, if you're 'touched in the head', that means you're a little nuts. Not sure on the etymology, but I like it. 3) Rûna is the same OC as I made up for Redamancy, but this is several years earlier than Bell knew her.  
> Again, Merry Christmas!  
> À demain!


	53. Dwalin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst and introspection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end notes are full enough already, so I'll just say this up here.  
> À demain!

The guards escorting them weren’t as patient as their leader. They didn’t out-and-out tell Kíli to hurry up, but their muttered insults weren’t exactly quiet.

He’d tried to maneuver behind the other three so that he could slow the group down himself, but Fíli had snapped at him to keep the pace, with a glare so venomous that he was half-surprised that his beard hadn’t ignited.

But thinking of the pup’s hatred couldn’t distract him completely. Belda was barely moving—barely even breathing—and so warm that she was sweating even in the night-chilled air.

And if that weren’t enough, she’d wake to find that the one secret she’d begged him to keep, the one thing that terrified her more than anything—more than wolves, more than her family, more than Smaug—had come to light, come to pass. And he’d done nothing. Dwalin had been there, and awake, and alert, and he’d done nothing except confirm what that Orc said.

He should have— should have let the Orc have his say, then he could have claimed he was only lying, claimed it was nonsense— but then the Orc had said— said that, said Belda deserved to die for nothing more than existing, and that—

He didn’t regret killing the Orc. That filth deserved a more painful death than Dwalin had given him.

But if he— no, not ‘if’, he was the reason the Company knew about Belda.

He’d never forgive himself. Not if he lived half again as long as he already had— not if he lived ten times as long as he already had.

He was her father. He was supposed to protect her.

And instead, he’d as good as thrown her to the wolves himself.

She was going to hate him.

No, this was Belda. He didn’t even think she hated her family, and they deserved her hatred as much as he did.

But it would hurt her. It had hurt him, to see the Company looking at him—at her—like they were monsters, to see Nori turn her back on them. It had felt like Thorin had ripped his heart out of his chest and the Company had taken turns trampling it, and Nori had taken the flattened remains and tossed them in a fire.

And it was going to be so much worse for Belda. And he had to be the one to tell her. Letting someone else do it was mercy he didn’t deserve. He had to be the one to tell her, because he had to watch every second of tears, of sobs, of rages, of misery, so that he knew exactly what he had done to his daughter.

Kíli’s pace redoubled for a few seconds—Dwalin heard his steps accelerate—then stopped as he let out an agonized groan. Looking over his shoulder, Dwalin saw Fíli nearly crumple under his weight, though Ori put an arm behind Kíli’s back quickly to help him stand again. Fíli shot Dwalin a black glare when she caught him looking, and he faced forward again.

And then there was that. If Belda didn’t love Kíli, she was within arm’s-reach of it. To wake up not only to be told that all the people she’d spent the last five months risking her life to save had all turned against her, but that the man she loved was wounded and in agony and she couldn’t go to him…

It would break Dwalin. He knew it would, and he didn’t even love Nori yet.

And there was the one thing he’d been trying to avoid thinking of. He’d started to hope—to trust—that there was a future for them, a life built on respect and trust and their love for Belda, and she’d rejected him. She’d turned her back on him, and worse, on Belda.

He understood why, but it was no more defensible for that. She’d earned Belda’s trust only to throw it away.

And that would hurt Belda almost as much as it killed him.

But eventually, they reached the Manor House the Master had so graciously allowed them to use. Dwalin smothered a snort at his own sarcasm. That Man’s nature was obvious, and it wasn’t gracious, by any means.

But the house had been aired out—by the men the leader had sent ahead and half a dozen women they’d evidently recruited to help them—and the candles had been lit, and the grates. Fíli and Ori all but dragged Kíli after a girl—probably an adult, but she didn’t look any older than Belda—who said she’d take them to a room with a fireplace.

Once they were gone, Dwalin set off to find one himself. He could ask, but he wanted a few minutes alone. Everything had happened so fast…

Besides, the building was Mannish, so the doorknobs were at the same level of his hands as he held Belda, anyway. He stayed on the ground floor—well, ‘ground’—and eventually found what he supposed was meant to be the head chef’s room. It was near the kitchens, anyway, but it was too fine for anything but one of the head servants, and not fine enough for anyone who didn’t work for a living.

Though the town was impoverished enough that ‘fine’ was a relative statement. Compared to the Lords’ houses in Erebor, it was pitiful. Compared to how they’d lived since Erebor fell, it was grand.

But while the room was small, that only meant the bed was nearer the fire, and the lack of windows only meant that it would hold the heat all the better.

If she needed warmth. He wasn’t—couldn’t be—sure. All he could do was wait for the healer to arrive. He clambered carefully onto the bed, still holding onto Belda, and settled with his back against the wall, not unlike how he’d held her in the room in Mirkwood. But this time, there was nothing to read, nothing that would tempt him to let go of Belda. All there was to do, was wait.

After a few minutes, a servant girl—who looked even younger than the first; bloody Mahal, had those guards pulled their sisters from their beds?—poked her head timidly into the room, then abruptly disappeared as she saw him. A moment later, she pushed the door open far enough for her to enter, bowed shakily to him, and moved to the grate to light the fire.

He closed his eyes after he saw where she was moving. Maybe the warmth would help Belda, maybe it wouldn’t, but he didn’t have the energy to worry about it yet. It had been a long day, and he’d had a long day before that, and long weeks of worrying about Belda before that, and long weeks of worrying about all of them in the forest before that.

He didn’t think he’d gotten a full night’s sleep since they left Beorn’s.

He must have dropped into a doze at some point, as he jerked awake as the door creaked. A woman—honey-haired and with eyes as shrewd as Balin’s (and the thought of him sent a stabbing pain through Dwalin’s heart, he hadn’t had time to think— the look on his face when he realized it was true, that Dwalin had been lying to him—) and a face as kind—glanced over both of them quickly. Moving to the fire, she lit the handful of candles she held one by one in the fire and ordered, “Lay her down so I can examine her.”

A wave of sheer rebellion crashed over Dwalin, pulling him to ignore her, to keep holding Belda, to keep his precious daughter close and safe—

But he gritted his teeth against it and obeyed, laying her gently down on the mattress. He didn’t have the knowledge to help her, and this woman did. She was Belda’s only hope.

Setting the candles on the table beside the bed, she bent over Belda, examining her carefully. “She isn’t a Dwarf, is she?”

Swallowing back the automatic lie, Dwalin murmured, “No. She’s a Hobbit.”

The woman glanced at him, brow furrowed, before turning back to Belda. “I’ve never heard of them.”

Reminding himself that she needed to know everything that could possibly affect Belda’s treatment, he took Belda’s hand and stroked his thumb over the back of it, watching the firelight and shadows play over their different complexions. “They live over the Misty Mountains. Keep to themselves, mostly.”

“So she’s…”

“My daughter.” His voice was hoarse; clearing it roughly, he blinked away the blur. “She lost her parents a bit over a decade ago. I adopted her just— just a few—”

Her voice was softer when she asked, “Weeks? Months? Years?”

A half-laugh escaped him, though it was half a sob, as well. “I’m not sure. I lost track of time in that bloody forest.”

“It’s September twenty-fifth, if that helps. It’ll be the twenty-sixth soon, if it isn’t already.”

“Almost three months, then.” It struck him, suddenly, that ‘almost three months’ could be all the time they had, if she…

Grief turning to fury, he swept his arm roughly over his eyes, but he couldn’t banish the thought now. She was so weak.

“How long has she been sick?”

Forcing back his tears, he answered as steadily as he could, “I don’t know. We— The only way out of the Elvenking’s Halls was by the river, in barrels.” She looked incredulously at him, but he could offer her nothing but a grimace. “But someone had to stay out, and she knew another way out, one that we couldn’t use and she could. She promised me she wouldn’t— But when we came ashore, she was soaking wet and already sick. Coughing so much she couldn’t keep her balance, Kíli said.”

“Kíli,” she said the name carefully, “he’s the one whose leg I treated, isn’t he?”

A pang of guilt struck Dwalin for not asking before, “How is he?” No matter that he’d turned against them as much as the others, he was still the pup Dwalin had trained up from a Stripling.

“Well. His leg only needs time, I think.” Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, she added, “He seems to be sorting through a large shock, though. Any idea what?”

Meeting her gaze, he responded flatly, “Yes, and I won’t tell you.”

She shrugged and went back to examining Belda. “None of the others would, either. Can she swim?”

He frowned at the abrupt change of subject. “No, that’s why I wanted her to go a different way. What does it matter?”

She hummed lowly. “There are two ways people catch Lung Fever. Either it spreads like any other disease, or they tried to breathe underwater. Elves don’t have or carry diseases.”

Her tone at the end was leading, and he nodded. “I don’t know if Dwarves can pass on Mannish illnesses, but we don’t fall ill like you do. Hobbits do, I think, but we haven’t been around anyone she could’ve caught it from.” Slowly, he nodded again. “But Kíli specifically mentioned that—when he saw her lose her balance—she fell underwater. He pulled her up within a second or two, but she was already coughing when she broke the surface. And our trip wasn’t exactly calm, for the first bit. If she was already in the water at that point, it’s a miracle she’s still breathing at all.”

“She’s that unskilled?”

In a town built on a lake, he supposed that level of surprise would make sense. “She’s terrified of the water. Hobbits as a race don’t swim, apparently.”

Humming again, she nodded, then drew back from Belda. “She’s very weak,” she warned, “but with care, I think she’ll pull through. This sleep, though…” Brow furrowed, she looked to him. “Was she weak before the river? How has she been for the last few weeks?”

He held back a sigh. “When the Elves captured us in the forest, she was a few days from starving to death. None of us expected the forest to be as large as it is, and we didn’t realize how much food Hobbits need. By the time we did, it was too late to turn back, we had to keep going. The Elves nursed her back to health, but she’s barely been sleeping for the last fortnight or so. Could that have made things worse?”

“Yes and no,” she bobbed her head from side to side, “it shouldn’t affect how well she pulls through, but it would explain why she’s so deeply asleep. I shouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t wake for a day, at least.”

As she stood, he stared up at her helplessly. “How am I supposed to take care of her? I’m not a healer, I don’t know anything about it.”

Snorting, she looked flatly at him. “You won’t be taking care of her, I will. There’s fourteen in your Company, including the both of you, isn’t there? This house has more than enough room for one more. Well, three more.”

Dumbstruck, he could barely muster a stammering, “W— Why?”

“Why three? Because my daughter isn’t old enough to be away from me for more than a few hours and my husband makes an excellent bed-warmer when he isn’t being the only competent guard in the town.”

Shaking off the train of thought that introduced, he clarified, “Why are you staying? We’re complete strangers to you.”

At that, she stilled, looking at him with something partway between pity, sorrow, and surprise. “Because I don’t leave my patients untended, and because it’s the right thing to do.” Abruptly, she grinned, and she looked so like a Mannish version of Belda that he nearly swallowed his tongue. “And because I’ve made it my life’s work to be everything the Master isn’t—and every other selfish water-brain here, too—and one of those things is ‘kind’. Another is ‘intelligent’, but that’s much easier.” A shocked laugh burst from him, shaky though it was, and her smile softened. “I’ll find a room and collect my daughter and be back in a few minutes.”

Inclining her head to him slightly, she left, closing the door behind her.

Without her, the room was nearly silent; the only sounds were the crackling of the fireplace and the faint wheezing of Belda’s breath. Stroking his thumb over her hand again, he reminded himself, the healer had said she’d pull through. She’d said she would. She’d said…

But he’d been alive far, far too long to think that anyone was infallible.

Alone in a secure room, Dwalin let himself face the possibility, and he wept.

* * *

 

Nori

 

The first thing she’d seen when they arrived at the Great Hall was that Dwalin and Belda (and Fíli, Kíli, and Ori) weren’t there. She’d been glad, at first. But the din was raucous enough that she still couldn’t hear herself think, and she slipped out after eating a few bites of something, she wasn’t sure what. It had only tasted like ash.

Scaling the building wasn’t hard—it was hardly the first time she’d worked in a Mannish town—and spotting the one building that was lit up with enough fire and candles to bankrupt some people wasn’t hard, either. And it really wasn’t hard to sneak close enough to look in the windows without being seen. Once she saw Ori inside, exiting a room, she crept away again, safe in the knowledge that she knew where her family was.

Except she wasn’t sure how big her family was.

Finding an empty building, she climbed to the roof and perched in a spot that couldn’t be seen from the ground. And finally, everything stopped. The noise she could hear was distant, no different from what she might hear in any town in the middle of the night, and for a while, she just sat and thought.

Certainties first, as always.

Belda was a dragon. The Orc had said it, Dwalin had confirmed it.

Dwalin had been lying to Nori—to all of them, but it hurt regardless—for Belda. And he’d been willing to defend her against them.

He’d hadn’t enjoyed lying to them—how anguished he was when Balin reacted, when she reacted—but that hadn’t stopped him.

In Mirkwood, Belda had told Nori that she had a secret huge enough and drastic enough that Ori had turned against her when he’d learned it, and for a few moments, she’d been convinced that Dwalin would, when she first told him.

She had told Dwalin, he hadn’t found out by accident or figured it out like Ori. She’d said so, that day, and he’d confirmed it.

Dragons were pure evil, everyone knew it. She may not have been in Erebor when Smaug attacked, but she’d heard more than enough survivors describe it when they were in their cups to know that it was true: dragons were evil, soulless, greedy creatures.

But according to Belda, her secret—her being a dragon—didn’t change who she was.

Belda, as confirmed by the Company, had thrown herself between the Company and danger again and again in the time Nori couldn’t remember, and Nori knew from Kíli, Balin, and from Belda’s condition when Nori came out of her barrel that she’d done so with the spiders, with the feast, and with the river.

Ori said that Belda had blackmailed him into keeping silent. Even if it were proof that she was evil, it absolutely meant she knew full well what they would think of her.

And she’d risked her life for them regardless. She’d gone through agony for them, more than once.

She’d lied to Nori.

She’d lied to Kíli.

She’d only told Dwalin after he gave her his bead. That hadn’t stopped her from being afraid of his reaction.

But that assumed she was telling the truth about that.

Uncertainties, then.

Belda could have been lying to them the entire time, keeping up a false persona the way she had with the Elves. Except knowing what to look for, Nori had been able to see the edges of it. And if Nori was dipping into that level of paranoia, then she couldn’t be sure of anything at all, and she was not that gullible.

But she could have exaggerated, could have feigned affection where there was none. But how many times had she risked herself for them? No, that couldn’t have been faked. From the sound of it, no one would have been surprised or even disappointed at the beginning if she’d run and hid at the first sign of danger and left them to handle it. She could have avoided any risk to herself, and instead she’d run headlong into it.

She could have exaggerated her distress when she told Nori about her secret in Mirkwood, could have been foxing her tears, could have chosen her implications as delicately as she handled the Elves.

She could have lied about Dwalin’s reaction— but he’d confirmed that she’d told him, rather than him figuring it out on his own, so she might have been telling the truth. Probably was, in all likelihood. It had been a great enough shock to Nori, but Dwalin had been there, in Erebor, had seen Smaug, seen what a dragon could do. No, he probably had reacted as badly as they had at first, and she wasn’t surprised that he’d overcome it quickly; how much he loved Belda was obvious.

If Belda was telling the truth about her being a dragon not changing who she was, then even as a dragon, she’d do everything in her power to protect them. Was Ori right— would she kill Smaug for them? Could she kill Smaug? Would he kill her? A sharp pain pierced Nori’s heart at the thought, but it was joined swiftly by confused guilt. How could she still care for Belda, knowing this? Shouldn’t she hate her, like the others?

Leaving that aside for the moment, she considered the next issue: the blackmail. If she was honest with herself, even a week prior, she would have acknowledged that it wasn’t unlike Belda. Threatening harm on a Dwarf when she was so much more fragile than they were would be beyond foolish. But threatening something else, the release of information, would be effective, assuming she chose the right target.

But this was Ori. The only thing in the world more dear to Nori than him was Dori, and Ori was almost more her son than her brother; she’d had almost as much of a hand in raising him as Dori had. But… She still remembered the way Ori had grabbed Belda in the forest, how enraged he’d been. That didn’t add up; if she were threatening him, he shouldn’t have been so willing to risk her wrath. But Ori wouldn’t lie.

Pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes, she groaned and laid back on the roof. Twenty-four hours earlier, she would have gladly said that she would trust Dwalin, Belda, and Ori with her life. Now she wasn’t sure of anything. She wasn’t sure what Belda was or if she even had a heart. She wasn’t sure if she could trust her own brother to be honest. She didn’t know what to think about Dwalin.

He thought he was doing the right thing, of that she was sure. One of the things she knew about him like she knew her name was that nothing and no one could persuade him to do something he wasn’t inclined to do, except perhaps Thorin, and in some cases, not even him.

But he wasn’t infallible. He could be wrong about Belda.

But was he? She’d just spent weeks talking with her, if only for a few hours at a time, and she hadn’t seen anything to make her think Belda was anything but a scared, overwhelmed girl who was doing her best.

But that could have been a lie, just like her lying to the Elves.

But could anyone keep two long cons running simultaneously, and seamlessly?

But she wasn’t ‘anyone’, she was a dragon.

But she was Belda.

Frustrated tears building behind her eyes, Nori fought them back and climbed down to the bridge. She wasn’t going to figure anything out that night, and the cold was beginning to get to her. The rest of the Company hadn’t emerged yet, so there would still be plenty of fireplaces just waiting for someone to claim them, and hopefully feather mattresses, too. She’d slept on worse, but tonight…

Tonight she’d need all the help she could get.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Kíli was sweating. The room was barely warm, despite the fire, and Fíli and the healer had stripped off his extra layers, and he didn’t even have any blankets on him, but he was sweating. Should she fetch the healer? He hadn’t been sweating while the healer was here. Or maybe it could wait until morning.

Looking more closely at his face, she realized how upset he looked; maybe that was why he was sweating? “It’s all right, Kee.” He didn’t quite look toward her, but his eyes flicked in her direction at the sound of her voice, so he could definitely hear her. “I know this is a horrible shock, but I’m here. I’m sorry about Belda,” which was and wasn’t a lie; she wasn’t sorry that now she had proof Belda couldn’t be trusted, but she was sorry Kíli was hurt because of it, and she didn’t mean his leg, “but things’ll be clearer without her around, you’ll see. She—”

“I’m tired.” He rolled onto his side—facing away from her—as soon as the words were out, with no audible wince, but she could see how tense his shoulders were.

“Kee—”

“I said I’m tired.”

For a moment, she stayed still, one hand hanging in the air, halfway to reaching him. Slowly, she drew back. She didn’t know what to make of this. They were always there for each other, always, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew he wasn’t truly tired. He just wanted her to stop talking, and that was the easiest way.

She couldn’t leave him—what if something happened?—but she could—and did—retreat to the other bed in the room. It was late and they’d had a long day. Maybe sleep was a good idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I am officially out of buffer. Mirkwood turned out longer than expected--who am I kidding, everything turned out longer than expected--and I am just not going to have the time to get this story to the stopping point I wanted before I have to leave. It was supposed to be a surprise, but whatever: this is only part one. I was going to take Mångata up to BotFA and end on a cliffhanger, then have the second part of the story as the next in the series, under a different name. But it looks like I'm only going to be able to write up to them leaving Lake-Town. At least, write it well.  
> So, I have a (multiple-choice) question for you. There are four options.  
> 1) I could write up to them leaving Lake-Town and just stop, and leave the story incomplete.  
> 2) I could write through leaving Lake-Town and then skim over everything until BotFA. (Not my favorite option; it would basically just be a timeline of things that happen, without any detail.)  
> 3) I could write through leaving Lake-Town and tack on a temporary epilogue with Gandalf realizing she's a dragon.  
> 4) I could write through leaving Lake-Town and tack on a temporary epilogue with her and Kíli going to the Shire fifteen years after everything (Smaug and the Ring) gets taken care of.)  
> At this point, 4 is my favorite. But what would all of you want to read? Whatever it is, it would have to be something you'll be happy with for the next several years, possibly, because I have absolutely no idea when I'm going to be able to update again. Theoretically, I might be able to in a couple months, but that'll be in what free time I have in between classes and studying, and I have no idea how much that'll be. Realistically, it's probably going to be at least a year. I am not abandoning this story, I want to make that clear, but I'm going to be insanely busy for the next while. I have notes on the plot, I have everything I need to make sure that I can pick up where I left off when I do come back, but that might be a long time.   
> So, which option do you want?


	54. Bard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fragile peace.

Bouncing Sigrid on his knee, Bard mashed a few cranberries into paste. There were advantages to living so near the Elves when winter approached. And there were advantages to being the healer’s husband, though this was the first time there’d been so many. As the girl, Belda, had needed near-constant tending over the last few days, ‘Thorin’ had agreed to let Rûna stay in the manor house, as well, and the same luxury had been extended to Bard and Sigrid. The Master had seen fit to declare a holiday while the Dwarves were in town, and Ove—after hearing what Bard had done in his absence—had ‘graciously’ relieved him of his duties in the guard until the Dwarves left.

It rankled, but he’d weather it. He’d weathered worse.

And having fresh, ripe food for a change made up for it. He took a bite of bacon at the thought, before spooning up a tiny amount of cranberry paste. The Dwarf on the other side of the breakfast table—Bombor? Bumbur? Bomur?—was smiling at Sigrid, making faces at her to keep her entertained, and Bard smiled gratefully at him as Sigrid chortled, flapping her arms excitedly. Rûna hadn’t come to bed the night before, and Sigrid was getting hungry.

Turning Sigrid a bit to the side, he bent around her so he could see her face. “All right, open up, love, I’ve got something for you to try.”

She still hadn’t quite learned what she was supposed to do with spoons, but he was able to catch her with her mouth open and get a bit of cranberry in. Setting down the spoon, he watched her reaction carefully.

She blinked, surprised by the new taste, and Bard’s hopes rose. Then her face screwed up and she started crying.

“Oh, what did he do to you?” Sigrid was reaching for her mother before Bard even realized that she’d come up behind him, and Rûna took her, still cooing. “Did he make you eat those nasty berries? Did he? Oh, poor Sigrid.”

Restraining a smile, he protested, “I like cranberries.”

The Dwarf beside him—Duri? Doree? The silver-haired one, anyway—vacated his seat so Rûna could take it, as he had the previous two mornings they spent in the manor. Rûna thanked him with a smile—he smiled back and bowed slightly before moving off—before sitting, angled toward Bard. “You’re the only one who does, dear.”

Pointedly, he tossed a cranberry in his mouth, smiling at the tartness. Holding back a laugh, Rûna just shook her head as she tucked a cloth into her collar to cover her chest as she fed Sigrid. The white-haired Dwarf—Balin, he thought; he seemed to be the ambassador of them, and had begun conversations with Bard more than once—asked politely, “Did you sleep well, lass?”

Rûna chuckled, a bit sarcastically, to Bard’s ears. “Hardly a wink. I almost wish she was still asleep— she was a much easier patient that way.”

She didn’t mean it, Bard knew her too well to think that, but the Dwarves froze. It was almost a bit eerie, how every bit of noise stopped, other than what Sigrid was making.

Another Dwarf—one of the shorter ones, with reddish hair; Bard hadn’t caught his name—asked quietly, “She’s awake?”

Rûna’s eyes flicked to Bard’s for an instant before she answered; they’d had more than one conversation about how strange the Dwarves actions with regard to Belda were. “Yes. She woke up yesterday afternoon, but she was in no state for visitors. Still isn’t, but she’s doing better than last night.”

There was another long, weighted silence. The same Dwarf who’d asked about her shoved back from the table and stalked out of the room; Bard might have thought he was going to see her, but a moment later, the main door slammed, and loudly. Ori looked almost sick, and the silver-haired Dwarf took the now-vacated seat beside him so he could fuss over the younger Dwarf. Dimly, Bard remembered that the three of them had similar names, in the same manner as Fíli and Kíli. Maybe they were brothers?

Bard exchanged another disquieted look with Rûna, but the Dwarves’ business was none of theirs. He dished up another breakfast and slid the plate into Rûna’s reach, returning her smile despite the foreboding he felt.

* * *

 

Balin

 

Thorin had only waited a few minutes after the healer’s announcement to catch Balin’s eye. They’d discussed it two days before, after the hangovers from their arrival wore off. Even so, a knot of too many things to name sat heavy in his gut as he steeled himself to see his brother.

Dwalin hadn’t joined them for a single meal thus far. Whether he got food from the kitchen or the healer, Rûna, brought him food, Balin wasn’t sure. But in any case, this would be the first time he saw either of them since… everything.

Even thinking about it so obliquely, he had to repress a shudder. How Dwalin could stand to be in the same room as that… thing, he could not—would not—understand.

Thinking of their conversation in the forest, his gut twisted, caught between sorrow and disgust. He’d thought…

But she was a dragon. She was no kin of his.

Resolve firming, he opened the door and entered without waiting for permission. They were both on the bed—Belda under the covers and sitting up with a mountain of pillows behind her back and looking tinier than ever in the Man-sized room, Dwalin on top of the covers with his back against the wall—and neither spoke. Dwalin stared at Balin, wide-eyed; Belda tensed, something like resignation in her features.

As they evidently weren’t going to speak, he did so first. “The leader of the Company requested that I inform you that, recent revelations notwithstanding, you are still bound by the requirements of the contract to which you agreed.”

Belda’s eyes had fallen from his before he even began to speak, and settled on the blankets before her. Quietly, she responded, “I understand.”

He’d expected an argument, if he was honest with himself. He’d expected something in the way of their debate in Rivendell, not this… But wasn’t this how she treated Ori after he found out? The memory stiffened his spine again, and sharpened his voice. “Including the clause detailing the eviction or elimination of the current possessor of the king’s property.”

Now he knew why she never argued against that in Rivendell.

In the same tone as before, she answered, “I understand.”

“And that the Company is under no obligation to assist you in said elimination.”

At that, he got an actual reaction: she drew her knees up to her chest, looping her arms around them. “I understand.”

As expressionless as she was, Dwalin was openly teary, and Balin turned to go as his brother laid a hand on Belda’s arm. He froze at the hoarse sound of Dwalin’s voice. “And that her success will guarantee her the ‘undying gratitude’ of the Company, are you all still held to that?”

Even if Balin had known what to say to that, the way Dwalin’s voice thickened and shook toward the end of the question would have stolen Balin’s voice entirely. Instead, after a long, frozen moment, he just walked out, and didn’t bother to close the door as he left.

Even while he fumed—at himself, mostly, for not thinking to discuss that clause with Thorin days earlier—he heard the half-sob in the room.

Automatically, he froze, telling himself that it was Belda, she was trying to manipulate him—

But he knew the sound of his brother crying.

Another half-sob, more muffled, left the room, and Balin’s head turned toward the still-open door of its own accord. He hadn’t heard his brother cry since…

He wasn’t sure. Possibly since their father died. They’d both cried then.

Setting his jaw, he turned forward again, ignoring the slight blur in his vision.

He walked on.

* * *

 

Rûna

 

It was easier to treat Kíli when his brother wasn’t there. Rûna felt a bit bad about it—but only a little—but it was true. When Fíli was there, not only did he have endless questions, most of them repeats of questions that Rûna had already answered, but he hovered so much that Rûna could barely focus. And Sigrid didn’t like him.

So, Rûna waited until she saw Fíli and Ori deep in conversation in the sitting room before she let herself into Kíli’s room. He wasn’t sleeping; Fíli had mentioned something about how much he slept, but Rûna suspected he was misleading his brother a bit.

Nevertheless, she smiled brightly at him as she closed the door. “Right, how do you feel this morning? Any better?”

He didn’t answer, only rolled his head to face the ceiling rather than her. It was his usual response.

Shrugging, she pulled Sigrid out of the wrap—she was starting to get a bit wiggly—and laid her on her back on the other side of the bed from Kíli. There wasn’t much room between him and the wall; Dwarves may have been short, but Kíli was nearly as broad as Bard. She had to admit, if the Dwarves had come three or four years earlier, she might have been tempted. But she loved Bard, almost as much as she loved Sigrid. But she could still use Kíli as a babysitter. “Keep her from falling off, will you?”

As she spoke, she sat in the chair beside his bed in order to begin stripping the bandages from his leg; out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sigrid roll onto her stomach, the motion bringing her close enough to Kíli’s arm that she was able to pull herself up on him. Not much, she wasn’t crawling yet, but enough to be happily distracted by the new thing.

Babbling contentedly, she patted—or maybe ‘hit’ was a better word—his arm several times, then got distracted by his hair and reached for it. Except that she still couldn’t crawl, and it was out of reach. Taking the final layer of bandages off, Rûna bit her tongue in preparation for her daughter’s frustrated tears.

But then Kíli’s hand—the one on Rûna’s side—moved, and she looked out of the corner of her eye at him as he picked Sigrid gently up and set her on his chest. She looked absurdly big, compared to him, but chortled, hitting his chest with both hands, and he even held a strand of hair out to her. He barely even winced when she started pulling on it, flapping her arms in her excitement.

Leaning back a little, Rûna just saw the soft smile on his face as he watched Sigrid. Smiling herself, she focused on his wound. “You’re good with her. Any little siblings?”

He didn’t answer, but she was used to that.

Looking more closely at his leg, she frowned. “I’m starting not to like the look of this. It should be healing by now, but… what’s this…”

Leaning down, she was only just able to see tiny black lines at the edges of the wound. It didn’t look like gangrene, or any infection she’d ever seen, but what else could it be? It would explain his fever, anyway, and why the wound was so slow to heal.

Listening to Sigrid babble, she rewrapped Kíli’s leg with fresh bandages. Once she was done, she smiled at Kíli. “Do you need anything? I think I’ll take Bard and Sigrid to the market for some fresh air, might not be back for a few hours.”

Surprisingly, he actually shook his head a fraction. Carefully, he eased his hair out of Sigrid’s grip, then lifted her up for Rûna to take. Her smile became a bit more genuine; he truly was good with her. She’d have to let him play with her more often. Tucking Sigrid in her wrap, she moved to the door, murmuring quietly to her.

“You’ve seen Belda?”

Rûna froze, one hand on the doorknob. His voice was deeper than she’d expected, more like Thorin’s than anything else. Of course, he’d spoken softly, so it was a bit hard to hear, and his voice was a bit hoarse, probably from not talking for so long. Turning to look at him, she answered carefully, “Yes…”

He hadn’t asked about her once. None of them had, after Nori’s question that morning. But he swallowed thickly, eyes shining though they were still fixed on the ceiling. “How is she?”

Softening at his expression, she answered quietly, “Awake, now.” His brow contracted, slightly, and she explained, “She’s been asleep since I first saw her—since before that, according to her father—but she woke up yesterday afternoon.” After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “She’s not strong enough for visitors yet, but I could take her a message, if you like…”

Even watching him closely, she couldn’t decipher the complex play of emotions that crossed his face, other than that he looked like he wasn’t sure whether to cry or break something. She’d always thought that he was a bit older than Bard, but now she wasn’t sure he wasn’t closer to her age. Finally, he set his jaw, expression still turbulent, and shook his head once.

She couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed, but thinking of how isolated Belda was, her disappointment turned quickly to frustrated anger. “If that’s what you want, then.”

* * *

 

Kíli

 

Rûna left quickly, slamming the door behind her, and Kíli couldn’t blame her.

Her words hung in the air. _If that’s what you want._

Breath catching in his chest, he couldn’t help but whisper to the empty room, “I don’t know if it is or not.”

He’d had days to think, and he still didn’t know.

She was Belda, she was the woman he’d been falling in love with for months.

But she was a dragon. Sometimes he thought he didn’t care. But then Fíli would say something, or Thorin, and he would remember all the damage Smaug did.

But she was Belda.

The door opened; he knew it was Fíli before she even spoke. “You’ll never believe this: I actually got Glóin to stop talking about Gimli for five minutes.”

Rage and guilt and misery burst in his chest, covering his ribcage with the shrapnel, and he shoved onto his side, facing away from Fíli. His chest still hurt worse than his leg.

Fíli fell silent for a moment, then continued her story. He closed his eyes and drowned out her voice as best he could with nothing more than memories.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda wasn’t an idiot. It had been a full day—more than a full day—since she woke up, since Balin came to see her. And no one else had come.

Everything was… quieter, now that her First Shift had come and gone. Things weren’t as chaotic, or overwhelming. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to think so well.

Dwalin was worried, of course. She’d explained, but she thought he still thought she was in shock, or that losing the Company had broken her somehow.

He wasn’t entirely wrong; it hurt to even think of them.

But she’d been terrified of this for months. Years, really. Now that it had actually happened, now that it was over… It was almost a relief. It hurt, and she wasn’t sure it would ever stop hurting—especially Kíli—but it wouldn’t kill her.

She still tried to avoid thinking of Kíli or… or Ori’s sister, as much as was possible.

But apart from the pain, she almost felt empty. Everything was… quiet.

Hopefully that would help Rûna. Almost as though she’d heard Belda think her name, she drew back from Belda’s chest and smiled at her. “Well, as best I can hear, you sound better.”

Belda smiled back, but she couldn’t help but think listening to a patient’s heart would be easier with a brjósti-prófdómari.

“What?”

Belda blinked at her for a moment before realizing she’d said at least some of it out loud. Smiling self-deprecatingly, she shook her head. “Fairly sure that would be easier with a chest-examiner, that’s all.” When Rûna tilted her head curiously, Belda elaborated, “It’s a Hobbit invention. Sort of like an ear trumpet, but you use it to listen to a patient’s heart, lungs, anything.”

Sigrid babbled, where she was laying on the bed, and both women glanced at her for a moment, checking that she was still safely away from the edges. Satisfied, Rûna grinned. “How does it work?”

Despite how muted everything was, Belda still almost laughed, and did smile. “It’s not complicated. Is there any paper here?”

Rûna blinked at the unexpected request, but found a few recipes in a table, and handed them to Belda. Carefully, she rolled them into a tube, then held one end over her heart—where Rûna had just been pressing her ear—and motioned for Rûna to listen to the other end.

As she did, she grinned even more widely. “That’s brilliant! I assume Hobbits don’t usually use paper, though.”

“No, wooden tubes, a bit wider at one end than the other.”

“Oh, I see why you said ‘ear trumpet’.” At that, Belda did laugh, only once and only weakly, but more than she had in weeks, and the two women grinned at each other.

Belda liked Rûna. She was more than a bit Tookish, or would have been if she were a Hobbit. Sigrid cried briefly, catching their attention, and Rûna cooed at her as she gathered her up. There was something about the sight that was almost familiar, but Belda couldn’t place it.

“Oh, what’s wrong, love? Hungry?” Rûna adjusted Sigrid to lay in her arms as though she were about to feed her, but Sigrid didn’t try to latch on like Belda had seen her do the day before. Instead, she closed her fingers around the edge of Rûna’s overshirt and yawned. Rûna’s face fell. “Oh, love, that’s not…”

“What’s wrong?”

Rûna blinked at Belda, brow still furrowed. “Well, not ‘wrong’, really, it’s just that Sigrid won’t sleep in the wrap, only when she’s being held, and I was going to go check on Kíli.” A sharp pain cut through the emptiness, but Belda managed to hide her wince. “Actually…” Belda looked up at her warily. “Could you hold her?”

Belda gaped. “What?”

Rûna looked pleadingly at her. “You aren’t contagious, and you’re already set up with pillows behind you, and it’ll only be for a few minutes.”

Mouth working soundlessly, Belda tried to think of a reason she couldn’t. “I— I can’t remember the last time I held a baby.”

Rûna grinned, quick as lightning. “Well, let’s see if you remember, then.” Before Belda could react, she’d put Sigrid in Belda's arms. Automatically, Belda moved her hand to support Sigrid’s head, breath catching in her throat as Sigrid beamed sleepily and hid her eyes against Belda’s shirt. She was almost too big for Belda to hold comfortably—the size of a three-year-old fauntling—but all the same, Belda’s eyes burned. Rûna laughed quietly. “Well, I’d say you remember just fine.” Dwalin’s scent reached Belda a moment before she heard the door open, and Rûna added, “And here’s your Da, just in case. I’ll be back in a few!”

Rûna’s scent faded, and dimly, she heard Dwalin chuckle. “You know, if you were a Man, or if she were a Hobbit, the two of you would… b… Kit?”

* * *

 

Nori

 

Where was the kitchen? Nori’d skipped the last two meals with the Company; the way they’d been talking made her lose her appetite every time. She couldn’t understand it. Yes, everything with—

…everything, it had all been so shocking and so unexpected and at the same time made so much sense, but the Company…

They were acting like Ori had in the forest. That day when he’d nearly attacked Belda, when he’d been more furious than Nori had ever seen him. The entire Company was acting like that, except she would have thought it was the forest doing it. So why—

Rûna walked merrily out of a door a bit further down the hall, and toward Nori; Nori moved aside to make a bit of room for her, and returned her nod as she passed. That was odd, though. Nori’d thought her and Bard’s room was on the east side of the building.

The door Rûna had just come through was still open, but Nori deliberately didn’t look through as she snuck past; Rûna’s private business was none of Nori’s, and since she hadn’t been holding Sigrid, it would just be Nori’s luck to wake up a sleeping baby accidentally.

But just as she passed the door, Dwalin’s voice wafted out, and as quickly as that, Nori couldn’t move. She hadn’t heard his voice since he left with Bard, that first night.

“…ou would… b… Kit?”

And then she heard Belda, and her hand over her mouth was the only reason she didn’t let out a sob. Belda sounded as near tears as she’d been in that tree, and as weak and faltering as on the shore. “I… I had a brother. I didn’t—” A quiet, gulping half-sob cut her off, but she went on. “I forgot, but I remem…”

She trailed off; Nori thought, guiltily, that she should leave, but she knew how well Belda could hear. The entire section of the manor was completely silent, magnifying every word, every shaking breath, every half-sob. She couldn’t leave without giving away that she’d been listening.

Voice shaking and thin, Belda whispered into the silence, “He was so small, and I was only small, and when Da handed him to me, I thought he was a doll—” She laughed, shortly, the sound thick with tears. “—and then he moved. I almost dropped him. But it— it felt like this, he was— he was this size, I think, compared to me. And he was so soft…”

Against her will, Nori remembered holding Ori when he’d been Sigrid’s age. She could just imagine Belda ghosting her finger over Sigrid’s cheek, like Nori had she didn’t know how many times.

When Belda continued, she sounded a hair’s-breadth from outright sobbing, and Nori’s breath shook in an inaudible sob of her own. “And then I woke up a few days later— and Da— Da said he was— was g— gone, and Mum was in her room, I c— could hear her crying and she didn’t come out— and Da and I came back from laying down BIlbo and she— she was gone—” A broken, helpless sob reached Nori, and hot tears spilled silently down her cheeks and into her beard. “—and when she came back she wouldn’t even look at me—”

“Shh, kit.” Dwalin sounded as broken as Nori felt, and as Belda’s sobbing worsened, Nori crept away, wishing she’d kept walking when she could.

* * *

 

Dwalin

 

Sitting beside Belda, one arm around her while she smothered her tears in his shoulder, Dwalin barely held back tears of his own. It had been more than a quarter of an hour, and Belda was still crying, though after the first few sobs, her tears had dulled and quieted, never-ending, but gentle enough not to wake Sigrid.

He’d tried to persuade her to let him take Sigrid so she’d be more comfortable, but she’d only cried harder and cradled the babe closer to her chest.

After an eternity, Sigrid stirred, and almost immediately, Belda drew back from Dwalin and freed an arm so she could wipe her eyes clear. By the time Sigrid opened her eyes, Belda was smiling at her, albeit shakily. Sigrid squirmed until Belda sat her up on her lap, facing her, and Dwalin had to smile with both girls as the babe slapped her hands on Belda’s chest, beaming.

“Ow, really, ow!” Laughing, Belda pulled a strand of hair free from the loose sleeping braid her hair had been in for the last few days, and offered it to Sigrid with a grin, laughing again when the girl immediately fumbled it into her mouth and gnawed toothlessly on it.

Dwalin’s smile didn’t fade, as the two girls kept playing, but it saddened. He could imagine this so easily. Imagine watching Belda play with a little Dwarven sibling, rather than a Mannish stranger’s child. Imagine a child with Durin eyes and red hair. With his frame and Nori’s heart. Even now, even after Nori had turned her back on them, he could still imagine it.

He’d been so gutted, after she walked away. That had barely faded. But…

It hurt, knowing that she was in the manor and was intentionally keeping her distance. But he couldn’t muster the anger he held for the others.

It was funny, in a way. He should have been angrier at her than them; they were cousins, but she was his One. He should have been as angry at her as he was at Balin.

But he just wanted her back. The easy conversations they’d had in the dungeons between visiting Belda, the trust they’d been building since the beginning of the Quest—or even earlier; she’d said at one point, in the dungeons, that she’d trusted him for years, though she never let on—the affection they’d had so few chances to even begin to express.

He never would have called ‘him’ a friend a year earlier, but he’d trusted Nori even then; there’d been more than one time that he’d only had the chance to arrest ‘him’ because ‘he’d’ been doing something like giving food to a starving family or abandoned ‘his’ escape because ‘he’d’ come across another, worse criminal.

And then he’d started to get to know ‘him’ on the Quest, had begun to like ‘him’, even to respect ‘him’. And then ‘he’ was nothing of the sort and everything turned upside down. But all the same, nothing had really changed. She’d been the same thief he’d spent a century chasing, but she’d softened toward him, and they’d begun to talk. It had been as easy talking to her before they reached Mirkwood as it had been in the dungeons. And then she’d forgotten all that, but she’d still…

And he’d thought… he’d truly thought…

And then she’d turned her back on them and he’d abandoned all hope, but he’d had time to think now. And he couldn’t believe that she would turn so completely against Belda. Initially, yes—he knew full well how hard a thing it was to come to grips with—but now that she’d had time to think, he had faith that she would realize she’d been wrong.

Not much, not enough to think it would be anytime soon, but even entertaining the possibility that she would refuse to see that Belda hadn’t changed felt as though he were slandering her. The woman he knew would be compassionate enough to see Belda’s humanity.

But he knew there was always the possibility that he didn’t truly know her.

He’d lost more than a few hours of sleep over that.

Rûna came through the door, suddenly—Dwalin belatedly realized it must have been open the entire time—and stopped, a slow grin forming as she watched Belda and Sigrid babble at each other. “I knew I was right to tell Kíli she was in safe hands.”

At the name, Dwalin glanced reflexively at Belda; she looked up at Rûna sharply, while Sigrid reached toward her mother, still babbling. He couldn’t see Belda’s expression, but she sounded worried. “Kíli? Is he all right?”

As Rûna took Sigrid, she answered Belda absently, far more focused on her daughter’s smile. “Oh, he’s fine, love. More than a bit tired, but fine.” Bouncing Sigrid on her hip, she added, “Usually I bring Sigrid when I check his wound, and the last few times, he’s played with her while I work. When I didn’t bring her this time, he asked, that’s all.”

Belda tilted her face a bit away from Rûna, just enough to make Dwalin think she was probably looking at Sigrid, and just enough that he could see the edge of a vivid blush on her cheeks. “He’s good with her?”

If she’d been trying to sound casual, she failed. Dwalin bit his lip to banish a grin, and Rûna openly smirked. “Good as he can be when he isn’t well. He’ll make a good father.”

The color on Belda’s cheeks spread to her ears; taking pity on her, Dwalin cleared his throat and nodded to Sigrid. “Why didn’t you take her this time?”

Rûna shrugged. “I wanted to try a new poultice on his wound.” As Sigrid flapped her arms in the air, Rûna smiled at her, bouncing her again, as she continued, “Didn’t want her getting her tiny, little fingers all sticky, did I?” As she finished, she twirled in a quick circle; Sigrid laughed as hard as a babe her age could, and Dwalin had to hold back a laugh of his own. Transferring Sigrid to her opposite hip, Rûna addressed Belda. “Though, if you don’t mind, how old are you? Ori mentioned your birthday’s sometime this autumn.”

That took Dwalin aback, that Ori not only would care to remember, but to mention it. Belda’s flush abruptly died away, and her voice was shaky as she answered. “It was last week, the twenty-second— wait, you use the Steward’s Reckoning on this side of the mountains, don’t you? That would make it the twenty-third; our calendar’s a little different.”

Dwalin blinked at Belda—he hadn’t known that about the calendar—while Rûna stared at her, bemused. “How do you even know that?”

Even just looking at her profile, Dwalin could see her expression tighten. “My mother traveled a lot. She told me.”

The tension in the room was palpable; Rûna rallied valiantly. “Well, I ought to tell your companions they missed your birthday; they can get you presents while you’re all here.”

Belda stiffened even further, but smiled tightly. “No, Hobbits don’t receive presents on our birthdays, we give them. I already gave them mine.”

Rûna pursed her lips, dubious. “If you’re sure. But how old are you, really? I’m twenty-one and Bard’s twenty-three, if that helps.”

Dwalin’s brows shot up; the lad’s command of the room had been impressive enough, given that he didn’t seem to be any rank above the rest of the guards, but to accomplish that so young was even more so. Belda relaxed a fraction. “Well, I’ve never even seen Bard, so that doesn’t help, but I’m thirty-three. That’s when Hobbits come of age— actually, in Hobbit years, I’m the same age as you.”

Rûna’s brows shot up just as Dwalin’s had, but she only laughed. “Well, happy belated birthday, then.”

Just after she finished, Sigrid babbled something happened to sound almost exactly like ‘happy birthday’, and the three adults laughed and clapped. Looking confused, Sigrid clapped, too, hands missing each other as often as they hit.

Stubbornly, Dwalin ignored everything but what was happening right at that moment. It felt nice to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, the results: five people said they're leaving it up to me, four voted for choices one AND three, four voted for just option three, and eleven voted for option four. (Can I just say, I NEVER expected this many responses. Thank you all. Seriously, thank you.) So my decision is this: combo time. I just finished writing chapter fifty-five, and fifty-six will be them leaving Lake-Town. I'll add a tiny Gandalf section at the end of that (probably just a drabble, but who knows, it might be twice as long as the rest), and then I'll do a proper epilogue as 'chapter fifty-seven', for now.   
> I do want to stress, I am not abandoning this story. I'm going to be insanely busy for the next few months (possibly years, I don't know), but I WILL come back eventually. I'll probably post chapters of Mångata as I write them, like I am now, and then I'll try and finish the entire sequel before I post it, like I usually do. We'll see, though; I like having real-time feedback. Anyway, when I start posting chapters of Mångata again, I'll move 'chapter fifty-seven' to a separate entry in the series so that it doesn't throw off the chapter count, so make sure you subscribe to the series, not just Mångata. If everything goes well, I should be able to start working on the story again in two or three months, but I can't make any promises.  
> Notes: 1) I feel like I might be writing Sigrid a little too old, but I'm pretty sure it's close enough to six-month-old behavior that she could just be one of those kids that throws off the bell curve. Have I mentioned I love that age? They're so cute! 2) The contract seriously does say that 'the Burglar' will have earned the undying gratitude of the Company if 'he' succeeds in evicting/eliminating Smaug, and it also says that the Company will forever be indebted to 'him', and that all 'he' has to do is ask for help and they'll come running. Dwalin just didn't want to push his luck. 3) 'Chest-examiner' is the direct translation of the 'Hobbitish' Belda thinks, and is the closest I could get to 'chest-scope' without using actual Greek. That's literally what 'stethoscope' means, though, I just broke it into pieces. 4) And there's some Belladonna backstory for you. I couldn't just not explain why she was the way she was, especially since I'm running out of 2018. I've been planning this for months, though.  
> Sorry if this chapter is a little rambling, but this stuff needed to happen. Sometimes, you just gotta put the overall plot on pause.  
> À demain!


	55. Nori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What you've all been waiting for.

Nori’s fingers tapped a restless tattoo on her legs as she walked. At breakfast, Rûna had told Thorin that Belda would be well enough to travel the next day. Apparently. Nori hadn’t been there.

But the entire Company was preparing to go, packing and running to the market for last-minute supplies and such and so on, and Nori…

Nori felt like she’d jump out of her skin. Her gut was a knot of guilt, anxiety, fear, worry, and too many other things to count. This was the third time she’d paced the halls, and she still didn’t feel any better.

Passing Fíli and Kíli’s door, she caught the rapid-fire continuation of the same argument they’d been having since she first passed it.

“…ave to go!”

“We have to stay, Kee, you’re not well!”

“What ‘we’, you’re going— If I can’t, you are!”

“No, I have to stay with y…”

Nori shook her head, not sure whether to laugh or cry. They were so alike, but at the same time, it was almost heartbreaking, how Fíli apparently couldn’t tell Kíli just didn’t want her around at the moment.

Nori understood how he felt. She’d been avoiding Fíli—and Glóin and Bombur—for days.

It was starting to really bother her, how everyone had turned so quickly against Belda. It was almost like they were under a spell— not being sure about trusting a dragon was one thing, but the way they were acting, it was like they’d forgotten everything they knew about her.

Of course, she wasn’t really one to speak. Even after what she’d heard the day before, she wasn’t sure she’d give Belda the time of day when she came out. She felt wretched for even thinking that, but at the same time, the thought of even seeing Belda twisted her stomach further. But not seeing her wasn’t any better.

Shaking her head to try and banish the thoughts of Belda she’d been avoiding all morning, she almost walked straight into Dori and Ori.

Dori didn’t waste any time. “What’s wrong?”

She plastered on a fake smile, the one that had always fooled Dori before. “Just eager to leave.”

Both men exchanged an exasperated look, then each took hold of one of her arms and pulled her into a nearby empty room.

Closing the door securely, Ori leaned against it, ensuring she couldn’t escape. “There, no one’ll overhear. Now what’s really wrong?”

She tried again. “It’s nothing—”

“Nori, I have spent too long already ignoring every sign that you need help. Don’t make it longer.” She gaped at Dori for a long moment—apparently that smile had never worked after all—but she couldn’t miss the unspoken plea in his expression.

Deflating, she winced in anticipation of their scorn. “I feel wretched for not going to see Belda, all right? I know that I shouldn’t, but—”

Ori shook his head, cutting her off calmly. “You looked like you were a few weeks from adopting her in the dungeons, Nori. It’s all right that that’s lingering.” Nori blinked at him, as did Dori; she still wasn’t used to her shy brother speaking with quiet confidence. And his attitude was odd, as well; he kept going between being as terrified—or at least wary—of Belda as though she were walking around in dragon-form all the time, and seeming as at ease with her as though she weren’t a dragon at all. He blinked back at them. “What?”

Dori shook his head. “Nothing, love. But Nori,” he turned back to her, sympathetic. “Ori’s right. Long as you know you shouldn’t, it’s all right you still want to. I know it’s hard, but it’s for the best.”

Brightly, Ori added, “Like Adad leaving.”

The words struck Nori like a warhammer to the chest, driving the breath from her lungs and bringing tears to her eyes as Dori shouted Ori’s name and she snarled, “I am nothing like him, I’m—”

She broke off as Ori stammered defenses, but her thoughts continued whirling.

She wasn’t like Krovi, she wasn’t, he’d left her and Dori high and dry and alone, Belda wasn’t alone, she had Dwalin, Dwalin would take care of her better than Nori ever could—

Realization hit Nori with the gentleness of a bolt of lightning, and she staggered back, blood running cold. “No— Oh, Mahal— Mahal, I’m worse—”

She wasn’t like Krovi, she was leaving Belda with her father, leaving her because she was scared, leaving her because she didn’t know what else to do, leaving her because she didn’t know how to be a mother—

She wasn’t Krovi.

She was Belladonna.

* * *

 

Dori

 

Concerned, Dori reached out to his sister as she turned green. “Wh— Nori—”

She wrenched the door open and ran out before he could do more than take a step toward her. Exhaling slowly, he let his hand drop to his side.

Ori had fallen silent when Nori spoke the second time, but he spoke slowly now. “You and Nori always said that Adad left because it was the best thing for us.”

Heartache pulsed dully in Dori’s chest. He’d known they’d have to tell him someday, but no matter how old Ori got, Dori had never been able to bring himself to do it. Now, it seemed it was time. Sighing heavily—which didn’t relieve any of the weight in Dori’s chest—he closed the door Nori had left open and turned to face Ori. “His leaving was the best thing for us, Ori. But that’s not why he left.”

Ori stared at him with dawning horror, and Dori told him the full truth.

* * *

 

Nori

 

She barely made it to the bridge outside the manor before her stomach rebelled entirely and she emptied what little she’d eaten into the water. The Men who’d cheered, seeing her, murmured in mixed disgust and concern, and she shoved past them. It took her nearly ten minutes to lose her followers and clamber onto a roof where she could think; the distraction kept her mind blissfully busy for that long, but no longer.

What had she done?

A sob escaped, as loud as a shout, in the silence; she shoved her forearm against her mouth to smother the rest, but she couldn’t banish them entirely.

What had she done?

She’d broken her promises, she’d abandoned Belda—or that would be how Belda saw it—and when Belda needed all the help she could get—

What had she done?

But Belda was a dragon—but that was what Nori had been so conflicted about, not thatshe didn’t know how to forgive Belda for that, coming to terms with the fact that—

What had she done?

—that she didn’t care. Oh, her brothers would hate her, Thorin would say she’s a traitor, too, but she didn’t care, she wouldn’t have cared if Belda was an Orc, because it was Belda and she trusted her and she’d—

What had she done?

Belda would never forgive her. Heartbreak assaulted Nori, but she didn’t fight the pain. She deserved it. She’d been so slow to realize it, so cowardly that she hadn’t even gone to see her once, and Dwalin—

What had she done?

And Dwalin would never forgive her. Nori’s heartbreak redoubled, and it was all she could do to keep from falling off the roof as she sobbed. Even if Belda ever forgave her, Dwalin never would, he’d hate her, not just for abandoning him, but for hurting Belda—

What had she done?

—and he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t forgive her, Mahal, what had she done, what had she done—

 

After her tears ran out and her breathing steadied—she had no idea how long it had been, but the sun was low on the horizon—she made her way back to the manor. There were fewer people on the bridges, but more immediately outside the manor, and they all whispered about Nori as she passed. She didn’t need Belda’s hearing to know who they were gossiping about.

It wasn’t hard to avoid the Company—she did normally, so no one seemed bothered that she was now—though she did put a bit of effort into avoiding her brothers. There was a conversation she needed to have first.

Navigating to the same hallway she’d overheard Belda in the day before, she rounded the corner just as Dwalin disappeared into a different door than the one Belda was behind, and froze.

Well, if that wasn’t a sign that Eru wanted her to apologize to her One first, she didn’t know what was.

Still, it took a long moment for her to actually move. She needed to do this, it was the right thing to do—

But she was scared. She was a coward. She always had been, where her heart was concerned. She’d risk her life and her freedom for her brothers a thousand times, but one open, honest conversation, especially when she was the one being open, terrified her.

Finally, she forced herself to take one step forward, then another, then another, until she reached the door. It took another long moment to push the door open and slip in. He didn’t seem to hear her—his back was to the door and he was wiping off his hands on a towel, bearing relaxed—until she shut the door behind her.

He tensed slightly at the sound of the latch, but then he turned around, and he froze. She didn’t know what to make of his expression, but she couldn’t hold his eyes for more than a few moments, anyway. He took several measured, deliberate breaths before he spoke. “Did you need something?”

He was angry, she could hear it. The thought of him hating her— she nearly pulled open the door and ran. The only thing that stayed her was the thought of Belda, how much she needed to apologize to her. So, she stayed where she was and quietly answered, “To apologize.”

“To who?”

Wincing, she responded as quickly as he’d spoken. “Both of you.”

He snapped, “What, you just changed your mind out of the blue, like you did before?”

At that, her eyes snapped up to him, hurt and anger twining around her heartache. “That is not fair, Dwalin, even you needed time to process—”

Fists clenching, he roared, “But I didn’t leave her!”

A sob catching in her chest, she roared back, “Well, I’m not you!” He opened his mouth, but she didn’t give him the chance to interrupt her. “I’m not strong, I’m not brave— and you—” A curse caught in her throat and sharpened her voice, “You, of all people, should know I make mistakes, and sometimes—” A sharp sob escaped, cutting her chest to ribbons as it did. She couldn’t force her voice any louder than a near-whisper. “Sometimes I don’t know how to fix them.”

She couldn’t look at him again, and lowered her eyes to the floor. As quietly as she’d spoken, he asked, “You call this a mistake?”

A bitter breath—she wasn’t sure whether it was a laugh or a sob—left her. “I call it the worst mistake I’ve ever made.” There was a table and chairs behind her, and she slumped into a chair without bothering to turn it to face the right way. “Everything— It was too fast, I couldn’t— I couldn’t think, I couldn’t—” Disgusted with herself for falling back onto excuses again, she dug her fingers into her arms until it hurt. “And I should have stood with you, I know that, I should have— should have picked Belda,” she slumped a bit further, ire dying at the thought of her, “no matter what, and I will never be able to make enough amends for that. I know that. Not to you, and not to B—” Guilt stabbed at her, and this was Dwalin, and she couldn’t stop herself from blurting as her vision blurred, “I promised— I promised her I wouldn’t leave, I promised myself I wouldn’t leave, and not even an hour later—” She didn’t even try to check the self-loathing in her voice. “And I know—believe me, Dwalin, I know—how badly that hurt her. I know she’ll never forgive me, never trust me again, but—” Her voice broke, and she tried to keep her tears from her voice, but she knew she failed. “Please— please, can you tell her— tell her I’m sorry?”

There was a long silence before he spoke. When he did, his voice was icy. “It’s been almost a week, and all you have is ‘I’m sorry’?”

Nori flinched, hunching further in on herself. “I know it isn’t enough. For her or…” Her breath shook, but she finished, “or for you. I should have stood by you. Especially after Ori—” She shook her head once, hard, disgusted. “I don’t even know what to think about him— it doesn’t add up— but that— that would mean he’s lying to everyone, mean he’s throwing Belda to the wolves intentionally, and that— that would mean— but he wouldn’t do th— or would— I don’t—”

She was losing her grip, losing her train of thought, but then Dwalin’s feet moved into view just in front of her and she was able to stop, and focus, and breathe. He spoke too quietly for her to hear any emotion in his voice. “What are you saying?”

Fighting back tears, she gathered all her strength and raised her head, meeting his eyes. “I’m saying you deserve better than a cowardly thief. I couldn’t— I wasn’t brave enough to— even to admit to myself—” Throat closing, she closed her eyes against her rapidly-blurring vision and lowered her head again. She could only manage a thick whisper. “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

He didn’t respond.

Pressure building in Nori’s chest and behind her eyes, she could only bite her cheek and pray that he couldn’t tell she was crying. She’d been right, he hated her, and she couldn’t even blame him for it— she’d been horrible, she’d left them, she’d—

Large hands clasped on her forearms—she just had time to swallow back a sob and grit her teeth—and pulled her to her feet; she collided with Dwalin’s chest—why hadn’t he moved away?—at the same moment that he released her arms—here it comes—and wrapped his arms around her in a tight, warm embrace.

Her mind went completely blank.

Lips nearly touching her ear, he whispered thickly, “I forgive you.”

For a moment, she couldn’t move. She couldn’t even believe she’d just heard what she had. As it sunk in—as his heat sunk into her—her eyes burned and she tried to push away from him. “You shouldn’t— I hurt you— I hurt Belda—”

The name was a sob, and Dwalin’s arms tightened gently. “And I can’t forgive you for what you did to her. That’s up to her. But—” He drew back just slightly, just enough to look her in the eye, one of his hands cupping her jaw. “I can forgive you for my part.” His tone sharpened slightly, warning, “I won’t apologize for never telling you—I promised Belda I wouldn’t—but I wish I’d tried harder to convince her to tell you herself.” His eyes shone, and Nori’s heartache worsened to see his sorrow. “I never wanted to lie to you.”

His face blurred as her breath shook. “But I hurt you.”

She still couldn’t see him properly, but his smile still took her breath away. “Do you actually think I could ever hate you? Or that I’d hold onto it when this is everything I’ve been praying for? I’ve been hoping for exactly this since you first walked ahead of the group.”

Snorting despite herself, she ducked her head and muttered, “It just feels weird, walking behind you, I’m never behind you, I’m always in front so you can keep an eye on me.”

His hold faltered; glancing up, she saw he was blushing, and laughed out loud. His flush deepened, but his lips twitched. “Oh, shut up.”

His arms tightened around her again, and this time she returned his hold, tucking her head under his chin. For long minutes, they simply stayed like that. Breathing him in, she listened to his heart and tried to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming, that he truly had forgiven her. It seemed so unbelievable, but somehow…

Had it only been a few minutes since she was convinced he’d never want anything to do with her again? Had it only been a day since she was trying to convince herself she didn’t want anything to do with him? And now she was in his arms, and she was home.

But not all her home was there.

Slowly, they drew back, him looking as solemn as she felt, and not half as nervous. Quietly, he assured her, “I’ll ask Belda if she wants to talk to you.”

Her eyes burned again; not sure if it was at the thought of Belda or at the proof that he truly had forgiven her, she could only say, “Thank you.”

Eyes softening, he smiled and returned his hand to her jaw, and he leaned down just enough to touch his forehead gently against hers. Closing her eyes, she returned the tiny pressure; it wasn’t half of what she and her brothers normally used, but she supposed after being Belda’s father for so long, he’d gotten used to being gentle. Privately, she promised herself that she would, too, that she would be better to Belda now.

After an eternity that wasn’t nearly long enough, he drew back again, and cold rushed in to fill the space he left. “Wait here.”

She nodded, and he left. For the first minute, she stayed where she was, watching the door with bated breath.

For the second minute, she let herself breathe and tried to banish the growing pit in her stomach.

For the third, she sat in the chair again and focused on keeping her breathing even.

For the fourth, she tried desperately to keep her vision clear.

Halfway into the fifth minute, she gave up hope. Dwalin came in a few seconds later, of course.

She shot to her feet, searching his face anxiously. He was solemn, but she didn’t see any regret, any sympathy, that would make her think Belda had refused. Holding the door open, he motioned to the hallway. “You can go in.”

Throat closing, she could only manage rapid, nervous nodding. But as she turned toward Belda’s door in the hall, she realized he hadn’t moved out of the kitchen. “Aren’t you coming?”

He shook his head; Nori’s stomach clenched and exploded into butterflies at the same time. “She wants to talk to you alone.” Holding her eyes, he advised quietly, “Be sure you listen.”

Solemnly, she promised, “I will.”

* * *

 

Belda

 

Belda listened to the exchange from her perch on the edge of the bed, where she’d moved when she first heard them shouting. The walls were thick enough that she couldn’t hear anything quiet unless the doors were open, but when they shouted, it was easy enough.

The emptiness was cracking, no matter how desperately she tried to mend it. Maybe Dwalin had been right, after all, maybe it had been in response to the shock that everyone knew, a way to protect herself, because now it was falling apart and she was terrified. She didn’t want to feel, it was so much easier when she didn’t.

But Nori would make her feel. Seeing Nori, talking to her, listening to her excuses, she wouldn’t have any choice but to feel.

Nori’s footsteps neared the just-barely-open door, and Belda arranged her features into a blank mask. Maybe if it didn’t look like she felt anything, she really wouldn’t.

But there was no hope of that, was there?

For a moment, she thought of changing her mind, sending Nori away, she could—

But Dwalin. He was so much lighter, so much happier, when he came in after his conversation with Nori. He’d made sure Belda knew that he wasn’t pressuring her to talk to her, but all the same, it would hurt him if she didn’t even try.

So, she thought as the door swung open, for Dwalin.

* * *

 

Nori

 

Nori closed the door quietly behind her, not moving away from it for a moment. The room wasn’t large, but there was still several feet between her and the edge of the bed, where Belda sat, expressionless. But the kit’s eyes were on Nori’s, and her fists were clenched in the sheets.

After an eternity of staring, Nori said the only words that mattered. “I’m sorry, kit.”

Immediately, Belda spat, “Don’t you call me that.” Her eyes were shining in the firelight, but her half-snarl didn’t soften in the slightest. “Don’t you dare.”

Nori winced, pain and self-reproach striking her in quick succession. “I’m sorry again. I shouldn’t have…”

She couldn’t find the words. Cuttingly, Belda quipped, “What? Pretended you still care?”

Shocked, Nori couldn’t help a hurt, “K— Belda.”

The kit shrugged casually, or tried to; there was a sharp edge to the motion that spoke to how much she was hiding. Her fists—from what Nori could see of them—were white-knuckled. “It’s not like I blame you for it. I’m a dragon, you’re a Dwarf, of course you hate me. I never expected any different.”

Nori couldn’t tell if she was lying, and that was almost as bad as her words themselves. But her words, at least, Nori could refute. “I don’t hate you.”

Belda snorted harshly. “And I’m supposed to believe that? Just go.”

“Wh— No!”

Belda glared at her, but her eyes were shining even more. “I don’t want you here— Go!”

The words tore at Nori, but she held her ground, and shook her head. “No, if you didn’t want to talk, you wouldn’t have let me in.”

“Right,” Belda half-laughed, cruelly, “and you know me so well.”

“I know I’m right,” Nori corrected.

Snarling, Belda snapped, “How?!”

And Nori broke. “BECAUSE YOU’RE ME!” Belda gaped at her; Nori didn’t lower her voice much from a shout as she continued, “I found Krovi after he left, I found him with a new heiress on his arm, and then later I found him again, with children to replace Ori, Dori, and me, and no matter how many times I tell myself I hate him—” Faltering as her breath shook, she blinked back tears and went on in a near-murmur, “No matter how many, I know that there’s a part of me that wants him to come back, that still loves him.”

Belda only stared at her, eyes wide and shining, mouth dropped open slightly, and Nori could see her shaking.

Stepping forward, she reached out to her. “I’m sorry I left.”

And in an instant, Belda’s snarl was back, and she stood, batting away Nori’s hand. “I don’t care that you left!”

Knowing what she did, Nori doubted that, but she stopped where she was anyway, lowering her hand. “Belda…”

“I don’t care!”

Nori still couldn’t see a lie in her face. “Then why—”

“Because you lied!” As though her shout had broken some barrier, Belda flew at Nori, fists striking everything in reach; Nori fell back a step, but she’d helped raise a man who’d been stronger than her when he was younger than Belda was now: still recovering from her sickness, Belda wasn’t using any more force than Nori would use to swat a fly. Nori didn’t retreat any further, and she didn’t fight back. After a minute, Belda let out what sounded suspiciously like a sob, though she tried to cover it with a growl. “You said you would hear me out— you said you wouldn’t leave, and you— you—”

Her strikes slowed, then stopped altogether when she let out another sob; without thinking, Nori wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. She half-expected Belda to start fighting her again, but instead she buckled, dissolving into wracking sobs. Nori caught her automatically, shifting her hold to be supportive rather than restraining, and Belda’s hands fisted in Nori’s jacket as she cried.

Face buried against Nori’s sternum, her voice was muffled almost to the point that Nori couldn’t understand her. “You promised.” The sheer, quavering heartbreak in her voice broke Nori’s heart, taking her back to the first time she tracked down Krovi, the first time she realized her father didn’t care about them at all. “You promised, and you lied—”

Her voice broke, and Nori’s heart broke all over again. “I didn’t lie, love. I couldn’t keep my word, but I meant it when I said it, every word.” Belda’s crying only worsened, and Nori’s eyes burned, her beard heating as hot tears gathered in it. “Love, what is it?”

She only shook her head, crying helplessly, still gripping Nori’s jacket as though she were afraid that she would slip away again.

Nori’s eyes fell shut. She knew what it was. Bending down just enough to rest her chin on Belda’s hair, she tightened her arms around her. “I won’t make you any promises, love. I know if Krovi ever did come back, it would take more than pretty words to get me to trust him an inch again. So I won’t give you pretty words.”

But there had to be a way to prove it, something that Belda would be able to trust, something that Nori wouldn’t be able to weasel out of, something that would hold her to her word…

Stilling, Nori swallowed. Could she do this? Would it work? More importantly, would it be enough to hold her to her word when she faltered?

…She could, it would, and it definitely would.

Belda was stiff, her tears having faded while Nori was lost in thought, clearly picking up on Nori’s anxiety, and Nori deliberately relaxed, rubbing circles into Belda’s back. It didn’t really work, but she relaxed a bit, at least. Quietly, Nori asked, “Love, did Dwalin explain everything about what your bead means? About what being his Nâthu-id-Zadkh means?”

Sniffling, Belda mumbled into Nori’s shirt, “He said it means I’m his Daughter of the Line, that every Dwarf who sees my bead would know that I’m his.”

Nori nodded slightly, distracted by the realization that she was actually about to do this. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.”

“Why?”

Swallowing, Nori made her decision. “Because it’s a good way to hold someone accountable.”

Far more quickly than Nori would have connected it, Belda stiffened again and drew back, expression wary and voice shaking with incredulity or anger, Nori wasn’t sure. “You’re offering me your bead so that I’ll forgive you?”

Nori’s eyes widened; she hadn’t thought about how Belda would take it. “No, that’s not— Kit, I—” Wincing, she forced herself to slow down, and reminded herself of her kit’s earlier words. “Belda. I have absolutely no intention of leaving you again. If I have a choice in it, I’m never leaving you again. But I know you can’t trust my word right now. If you have my bead, that’s something I’ll never be able to take back or ignore. Every Dwarf we see will hold me to my word, even if I can’t hold myself to it.” Belda’s anger had faded again, but she still looked unsure, and Nori took her hands in hers. “If you’re going to refuse me right now, I’ll accept that, love,” It would kill her, but she’d accept it, “but if you need time, I think you should talk to your father about it, see what he thinks.”

A flicker of suspicion crossed Belda’s face, but mostly she still looked apprehensive. “You’re that sure he’ll support this?”

Breath catching in her throat, Nori smiled at her, sadly. “No, love. I think there’s more than a fair chance he’ll be against it. But I can count the people whose opinion I trust implicitly on one hand, and he’s one of them. If he thinks it’s a terrible idea, I’ll trust that. Do you want me to fetch him?”

Belda’s eyes fell from Nori’s for a few moments as she thought. Nori waited as patiently as she could, but she couldn’t help but be nervous. What she’d said was absolutely true—she would trust Dwalin’s decision, whatever it was—but she was still being twisted up with knots, she was so anxious.

What if he decided she needed to stay far away from both of them?

Slowly, Belda nodded, and Nori swallowed, letting go of her hands. “I’ll just fetch him for you, then.”

 

It was close to an hour after Dwalin went in to talk to Belda that he came out again. Nori pushed off from the wall she’d been leaning on immediately, searching his face, desperate for a clue, anything to soften the blow.

But his expression was impassive as he regarded her. “Handy way to win her trust back.”

Irritated, Nori snapped, “This isn’t about her trust, Dwalin, I can’t trust myself right now, but what did she decide?”

He sighed, bearing softening. “Nothing. She tired herself out, yelling at the two of us.” Two? Some of her surprise must have shown on her face, as he gave a flicker of a smile. “It took a few minutes to convince her to hear you out. But she’s asleep now. Come back in the morning.”

“Oh. Right.” She felt as though she’d just tried to take an extra step at the top of a staircase, thrown off by the lack of anything in particular. “Right.”

Nodding, she turned to go.

Dwalin caught her arm. “Hang on.”

She turned back to face him, steeling herself for more bad news.

Instead, he kissed her.

It only lasted a moment, and she was frozen, shocked, but she knew it would be one of her most treasured memories. Drawing back, he touched his forehead to hers, his eyes so close she almost could have fallen into them, and smiled softly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He kissed her again, a soft brush of his lips over the corner of her mouth, and disappeared into the room.

When she could think again, she spent a solid minute constructing a vicious curse against him. They’d touched foreheads before—just before he’d sealed her in her barrel, they’d leaned against each other long enough to be scandalous, by Dwarven standards, and she’d been glad Dori was already sealed away, for fear that he’d do something rash—but that— that was—

That bloody, manipulative, crafty, evil, wicked genius of a Dwarf—

Any chance of her getting cold feet in the morning was gone now; with the unspoken promise of more kisses—even if Belda refused, in the end, he’d probably still give her an apology kiss, at least—she wouldn’t risk staying away and ruining things between them forever.

Scoffing, she stalked away toward her room. She wasn’t sharing one with Ori and Dori, and she’d never been so glad. She wasn’t going to sleep a wink, now, she just knew it.

But touching her fingers to the smile she couldn’t banish, warmth filled her, and she couldn’t pretend to be upset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YASS OTP!!!! Hopefully it lives up to expectations?  
> Notes: 1) Did anyone else have Yondu flashbacks when Nori said 'because you're me'? Because I definitely did. 2) The kiss was so not planned, like I was writing the chapter, just going along as normal, la-di-da, and then Nori turned to go and Dwalin was just like, 'but what if I kiss her' and I was like '...YES'. (And now I have Luis in my head. Eh, he's one of the best supporting characters ever.)  
> Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a preference for where I put the epilogue? I'm planning on putting it in as a separate entry in the series eventually, but should I do that right away? Or should I post it as 'chapter fifty-seven' like planned? Either way, I'm going to leave the chapter count as a question mark, because the epilogue is only a temporary end, it is NOT the end of the story. (Well, it is, it's the future, but whatever, you know what I mean.) And for people worried about spoilers, basically all that's going be addressed is that yes, this story does have a happy ending (eventually), which shouldn't be much of a spoiler, because all my stories do. The only people who are even going to be so much as mentioned are Belda, Kíli, Nori, and Dwalin. (Well, there's going to be other people there, but no one from east of the Misty Mountains.😊)  
> I haven't actually written the epilogue yet, so I'm not sure if I'll have it done in time to post on Sunday or if I'll post it on Monday as usual, but chapter fifty-six WILL go up tomorrow.  
> À demain!


	56. Dwalin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leaving Lake-Town.

Dwalin set his and Belda’s bags in the pack-boat, next to the food. Rûna had been shocked to hear how much food Belda needed, but she had enough influence in the town as their only competent healer that she was able to get them enough extra food to get Belda to the mountain and back.

She would come back from the mountain. She would. The alternative—

He shuddered, a sob heavy in his chest. It didn’t bear thinking about.

As he walked back into the manor, he realized Ori was looking at the pack-boat, brow furrowed. “Is Nori’s pack there?”

Dwalin stiffened—none of the Company had said a word to him since he emerged from his and Belda’s room—but answered shortly, “Yes.”

“Did you see her put it there?” The lad turned his eyes on Dwalin, almost pleadingly, and Dwalin locked his expression down, hiding any hint of guilt.

“No.” It was true, completely. He hadn’t seen her put it there. But that was because he’d put it there himself, before setting down his and Belda’s. She’d put it in his arms herself.

Ori’s face fell slightly; Dwalin reminded himself stubbornly of how completely he’d turned against Belda. “Have you seen her? I’m not even sure she knows we’re leaving today.”

She knew full well, Dwalin knew; when he’d opened his door before dawn, she’d already been sitting across from it, her bag packed beside her, one of her beads already in her hand and ready to be braided into Belda’s hair. He hadn’t been able to resist kissing her cheek, to see that, and had nearly laughed when she tugged him closer for a proper, if chaste kiss. After a night’s sleep, Belda still hadn’t been entirely ready to trust Nori completely again, but she had decided: she wanted Nori’s bead.

When he’d left them to take the bags to the boat, they’d been sitting on the bed, Nori incandescent and Belda cautiously happy as Nori braided her hair. But he doubted she wanted anyone to tell her brothers before she could herself, so he sidestepped the question. “If her pack’s in the boat, she knows we’re leaving.”

He barely waited for Ori to nod before he walked away. “Dwalin—”

Cutting off the younger man with a raised hand, Dwalin swallowed down the swell of rage. “The only thing I want to hear from you is that you want to apologize to Belda. If that’s not what you’re about to say, don’t bother.”

When he didn’t respond, Dwalin bit back a snarl and just walked away. He’d forgiven Nori easily—it had been a shock, and her reaction hadn’t been so unlike his own—but Ori had had weeks to process, weeks to think it over and realize that Belda was no threat to them. And still, he’d sold her out.

Dwalin wouldn’t forgive him easily, if he did at all.

Of course, that went for the entirety of the Company.

Most glanced at him as he reentered the main room, where they were all milling around, waiting for the last few, but most of those who looked turned away again when they saw who he was. Those who kept looking at him—Balin and Thorin—did so with eyes and faces as cold as the ice in the lake.

Jaw clenched against a flood of mingled pain, rage, and grief, Dwalin moved to rejoin his girls, but stopped as he saw them come into view down the hallway.

Belda already had her head ducked—knowing her, it was probably to avoid seeing the Company’s expressions as much as to hide her own—which only served to make the new braid in her hair easier to see, a thick crown [braid](https://i-h2.pinimg.com/564x/e0/f3/fa/e0f3fa94a63d65e2aff9918c65c33132.jpg) that set her two beads—Dwalin’s silver Line bead over her right temple, Nori’s copper personal bead over her left—to eye-catching effect.

Walking beside her with her head high, her shoulders as square as though she were going into battle, and one arm around Belda’s shoulders in a clear claim, Nori didn’t so much as look at anyone in the room, only kept her flinty eyes fixed on the doorway.

That didn’t stop a wave of shocked exclamations from rippling through the room.

Dori was loudest, of course. “Nori! What are you doing with— with—”

“My daughter?” As the Company muttered, Nori continued just as icily, “If I’d been less pig-headed, I’d have claimed her days ago, soon as she woke up. So if you’d like to congratulate me, now would be the time.”

Her voice softened as she finished, just enough to hear, and Dwalin knew it was an olive branch. Despite how furious he was at the Company, he hoped Dori took it, for Nori’s sake, if not for Belda’s. He was just staring at his sister, chalk-faced and shaking.

But after a moment of looking between the two women, his face hardened into a hateful mask. He shook his head once, sharply, and stepped deliberately back.

Nori’s eyes shone, but she nodded slowly. Looking Thorin in the eye for a long moment, she tightened her grip on Belda and turned her back on the king, walking calmly to Dwalin’s side.

But he could see how tight her expression was, and he saw her eyes flick to Ori.

He followed her gaze, and frowned to see nothing worse than resignation in the younger man’s face. Nori’s words from the day before—how what Ori had said didn’t add up—came back to him. But Nori and Belda reached him just then, and he focused on them. Ori could wait.

Belda burrowed into his side as soon as she was close enough, and Nori stayed pressed against her other side; Dwalin placed his hand at the small of Nori’s back, pressing his elbow lightly against Belda’s side. With theirs backs to the wall, no one could see that, but Dori, Thorin, and Balin still glared venomously at him.

He looked impassively back at them. Even if he’d had the energy to match their rancor, they were still his family—and Nori’s—and he still had hope. Not much, not even a quarter what he’d had for Nori, but a bit. And on the day they came to their senses—and then spent a year and a day apologizing for every day they were cruel to Belda—he didn’t want to be the one apologizing to them.

He might forgive them—maybe—but he wanted the moral high ground when they came crawling back.

Now that Belda and Nori had joined them, Fíli and Kíli were the only ones missing. Now that he thought of it, it was odd that Ori would be out here—and as far from Fíli and Kíli’s room as he could get without leaving the building—by himself, wasn’t it?

They only had to wait a few minutes longer before the siblings emerged, bickering already.

But Dwalin could find no humor in the sight; Kíli was nearly grey, and his gait was unsteady despite the fact that Dwalin recognized his scowl as the one he wore when he was putting every bit of willpower he had into doing whatever he was doing perfectly. Usually—though Dwalin had never and would never tell him—he succeeded. Now…

Belda’s head moved slightly, and almost immediately afterward, he heard a quiet, heartbroken gasp and she tensed. Afraid of what Thorin and Fíli might do if she ran to him—let alone the fact that he had no idea what Kíli would do—he took his hand off Nori’s back and gripped Belda’s tunic tightly.

* * *

 

Kíli

 

He saw Belda, of course, he couldn’t not. As soon as he could see into the room at all, he was looking for her. It took him a moment to find her, standing near the opposite wall like she was, but then he couldn’t let himself really look at her. He’d looked long enough to see that she looked as healthy as she had in Mirkwood, and as beautiful as he remembered, and as distraught as she’d had to leave him in his cell, and he couldn’t look any longer.

He had a reputation for being impulsive, he knew that, but there were times when impulsivity wasn’t a bad thing.

This wasn’t one of them.

If he looked at her, really looked, he was going to run to her, he was going to forgive her in a heartbeat— Mahal, he’d get on his knees and beg her forgiveness, no matter how painful that was—

But he still didn’t know what he thought of this. And this— this wasn’t something that could hinge on how beautiful she was or how much he loved her. This was too important. He had to know his own mind before anything else, or he wasn’t worthy of his title. And he wouldn’t be worthy of her, either.

Beside him, Fíli gave up on convincing him herself and appealed to Thorin. “Uncle, he’s too sick to come, tell him.”

Fresh irritation darkened his scowl; everything Fíli said about Belda, lately, was irritating, but for the last few days, he’d been irritated with everything else she said, too. Holding back a wince as he put a bit too much weight on his bad leg, he snapped, “I’m coming with you.”

But as they stopped in front of Thorin, he looked Kíli slowly up and down, and his expression tightened. “We must travel at speed; you’ll slow us down.”

Anger and dismay choking him, he didn’t manage to speak before Fíli broke in, “And you’re still sick— even Óin would say you’re too sick—”

Anger moving to the forefront, he snarled, “No—”

“Kíli, listen to your brother—”

Kíli shook his head roughly, cutting off Thorin, and struggled to hold on to his anger when despair was flooding him. “No, I am going to be there when that door is opened.” Brows drawing together, he lowered his voice and shifted closer to Thorin, unable to keep the pleading from his tone. “When we first look upon the Halls of our Fathers, Thorin.”

“Kíli,” Thorin’s hand cupped the back of his head, gently, and as quickly as that, he couldn’t speak. Thorin had always done that when he needed to deliver truly bad news. Softly, Thorin continued, “stay here. Rest. Join us when you’re healed.”

He actually smiled as he said the last, and sheer betrayal flooded Kíli, making his chest tighten and his eyes burn. With as much strength as he could muster, he twisted his head out of Thorin’s grip and stepped back from his uncle. For a moment, Thorin looked as hurt as Fíli did every time Kíli told her he didn’t want to talk.

Óin stepped away from the group a moment later, quickly enough that Kíli suspected Bifur had been translating the developments into Iglishmêk for him. “I’ll stay with the lad. The lass has been doing well enough, but he needs a Dwarven healer.”

Somewhere under his turmoil, he was a bit offended on Rûna’s behalf, but Óin had a point. She didn’t have any experience treating Dwarves, and they weren’t as much like Men as Hobbits evidently were.

But his own situation took his entire focus soon enough.

It had only just crossed his mind to mention when Thorin clapped a hand on Fíli’s arm and ordered, “Stay with your brother.”

A pit in his stomach joined the tightness in his chest; being stuck with Fíli and her endless lectures on why Belda was pure evil was the last thing he wanted, but now there’d be no changing Thorin’s mind.

Grief joined the rest of the tempest of emotions pulling at Kíli. Just weeks ago, they’d been nearly inseparable. Now he wanted nothing to do with her. She’d probably take their separation from the Company as an opportunity to convince him just how horrible dragons were.

But— But what if he did, too? What if he used the Company’s absence—Belda’s absence—to remind Fíli of all the good Belda had done, all the sacrifices she’d made for them?

It wasn’t like Fíli to forget something like that, but it wasn’t like her to turn against a friend, either, and she’d counted Belda as a friend before they entered Mirkwood, he was sure of that. So he’d have to remind her of herself, as well, how she was before the forest, how she’d changed since then, how different she was now. It hurt, listening to her disparage Belda as though she were a stranger, but if he could bring his sister back, he’d take all the pain in the world.

* * *

 

Ori

 

As soon as Thorin ordered Kíli to stay behind, Ori slipped outside to the pack-boat. If Kíli was staying, Fíli would refuse to leave him, and Óin would probably want to stay, as well. Taking the chance, he grabbed all three packs and brought them back inside.

Fíli hurried over to him when he came back in, eyes flicking over the bags. “You didn’t grab yours. Good—”

At the same moment as her last word, he’d started to say, “I’m going—” Both of them fell silent, surprised the other agreed.

Fíli nodded, a bit awkwardly. “Good, that’s— someone needs to keep an eye on Thorin, so…”

Ori nodded, too, even more awkwardly. “I can’t leave Dori and Nori.”

Fíli nodded again. “Not with her, no.” Her eyes flicked to Belda as she spoke, and he bit his cheek.

His cheek was starting to get sore from how often he was biting it, actually. But it was either bite his cheek or say something he’d probably regret. Maybe. He wasn’t sure.

He hadn’t wanted this. When he’d spoken up on the shore, he’d thought they’d just keep their distance from Belda until they remembered everything she’d done for them. He hadn’t expected so much hatred. He never would have said what he had if he’d known they’d react like this.

And now— He didn’t even know how to get out of it. He didn’t know how to contradict everyone’s assumptions that he hated Belda as much as they did, he didn’t know how to extract himself from the mess he’d made, he didn’t know how to fix it. For the time being, it was easier to just go along with it.

No matter how much he hated himself for it.

Fíli moved closer, and he knew that look, but he stepped back. She blinked at him, hurt.

Uncomfortably, he used the first excuse for why he couldn’t kiss her that came to mind. “The— the Company. Everyone’s watching.”

“Oh. Right.” They were both silent for a moment, neither sure what to do now. Fíli lifted her arms a bit, and Ori couldn’t think of a reason why he wouldn’t want to hug her.

Stiffly, he stepped forward to embrace her; she was just as stiff at first, but she relaxed after a moment, melting into him, and he softened, too, despite himself.

Closing his eyes, he held her to him. This was how it was supposed to be, between them. Easy and comfortable and right. Things had been going wrong since he figured Belda out in the forest, since he started keeping secrets from Fíli. Now he barely knew how to tell her the truth at all.

Uneasily, he thought of Kíli and Belda, how often they’d talked before Mirkwood. Almost every night, even if Thorin had been trying to keep Kíli away from her during the day, they’d at least exchange a few words when he wasn’t looking. He knew for a fact that they’d spent hours talking in Rivendell. He’d been awake when they talked in the forest, just before the third feast.

They were so easy together. Not just as though it was easy for them to talk, but as though they were perfectly at ease with each other, or had been before all this.

Dwalin and Nori were similar, and he had his suspicions about them.

But he and Fíli had barely ever talked. Between Thorin and Dori and the Quest in general, they’d had barely any time together. They’d talked a bit in the forest, but not about anything important, and then he’d started lying to her and everything had gone wrong.

The revelation that they’d been going about it wrong from the beginning wasn’t pleasant, but Thorin called for the Company to move out before he could say anything about it. He drew back from Fíli and promised himself he’d bring it up when she joined them at the mountain.

There was no time for goodbyes, not with the Company already hurrying out to the boats, so he just tapped his forehead against hers and left.

* * *

 

Fíli

 

Ori was right, of course, they couldn’t kiss in front of the Company, but her chest still ached as she watched him go. Heavily, she moved back to Kíli’s side, not that he acknowledged her.

The hair on the back of her neck lifted, and she turned around to see that Belda was staring at Kíli. Her eyes met Fíli’s as Fíli glared at her, and she ducked her head quickly. The motion made it easy for Fíli to catch a glimpse of the same chain necklace she’d seen her wearing in Mirkwood, and for a moment, she felt an almost unbearable urge to go to the shorter girl and just rip the necklace from her, the necklace and whatever precious treasure hung from it—

A wave of horror swept over her, turning her blood cold, and she turned deliberately away from the dragon.

What had that been? She knew better than to use force like that—ever—unless it was on an Orc or something similar. The same part of her that had wanted to take the necklace reminded her that dragons were similar to Orcs, but she squashed it. That she’d even thought such a thing was disturbing enough.

How close she’d come to actually doing it was horrifying.

So she just focused on her brother. He was more important than anything else.

* * *

 

Belda

 

Kíli wouldn’t look at her. She’d been trying to catch his eye since he came out—and he looked so wretched, it broke her heart—but apart from a brief glance when he first came into view, he hadn’t looked at her once.

As Fíli moved to stand by him, she knew that they’d have to go in a moment, that this could be the last time she saw Kíli, and she did her best to memorize the sight of him there.

Movement caught her attention in her peripheral vision, and she dragged her eyes from Kíli only to meet a venomous glare from Fíli.

Breath catching in her chest, Belda ducked her head before the older girl could see her tears.

And Kíli still hadn’t looked at her.

A sob caught in her throat, but she was not going to cry, she wasn’t, not in front of the Company, not in front of the Men, and not in front of Kíli if he— if he—

If he hated her. Why else would he be avoiding her so much?

And she’d known that this would happen and she’d still—

As they moved out of the manor, all her rational thought got shoved behind an inarticulate litany of fear and panic in her head. Dwalin and Nori had warned her that the entire town was built on the water, but still—

She couldn’t have pried her fingers open from Dwalin’s jacket if she tried; she could barely even breathe, let alone move, let alone close her eyes. So she saw exactly how close they were to the water as they got into the boat and then it was rocking, Fætur Eldfreyja, the boat was moving—

* * *

 

Nori

 

Dwalin had to physically pick Belda up to get her into the boat, as she didn’t even respond when they tried to get her to let go of him to make it a bit easier to get her in. Some of the Company grumbled and muttered, but none of them looked especially surprised.

She’d thought Dwalin was exaggerating Belda’s fear of water, but apparently not.

Once Dwalin was in the boat—squarely in the center, where he’d be observed constantly—Nori stepped in to sit on Belda’s other side. Slowly—Nori barely even noticed the boats ease into motion, too focused on her san-naith—she was able to coax Belda into uncurling somewhat, still with her eyes shut tight, but relaxed enough that Nori thought she wasn’t convinced she’d drown at any moment, at least.

Wrapping an arm around her, Nori laid her cheek on Belda’s head, still keeping up a steady murmur of comforts and nothings.

According to Bard—who’d been assigned to escort them out of town; Nori suspected he was still being punished for something—it would take them the better part of two days to even reach the edge of the lake, and another day to row far enough up the river to meet the rest of the provisions the Men were sending. Belda would need all the comfort she could get.

Deliberately, Nori didn’t think about the mountain. Right here, right now, Belda needed her. There’d be time to think about Smaug.

But she still couldn’t banish the pit in her stomach.

* * *

 

Gandalf

 

Olórin strode steadily toward where they’d left his horse and Aiwendil’s rabbits even as the shorter wizard continued their debate. “Why now, Gandalf? I don’t understand.”

Patiently, despite the urgency of the matter, Olórin explained, “The ringwraiths have been summoned to Dol Guldur.”

Almost before he’d finished, Aiwendil broke in, “But it cannot be the necromancer. A Mannish sorcerer could not summon such evil.”

Olórin slowed to a stop, at that. “Who said it was a Man?” Aiwendil turned to look at him, at that, though Olórin couldn’t help but look toward the east. “The nine only answer to one master. We’ve been blind, Radagast. And in our blindness… the Enemy has returned. He is summoning his servants.” He looked toward Aiwendil again, and saw the growing horror on his kinsman’s face. “Azog the Defiler is no ordinary hunter. He is a commander. A commander of legions. The Enemy is preparing for war. It will begin in the east. His mind is set upon that mountain.” Stomach sinking, he looked east again. “And, I fear, on what is traveling toward it.”

“Gandalf?”

In all the years he’d walked on Arda, he could remember only a few times he had felt his age so keenly. Leaning heavily on his staff, he met Aiwendil’s eyes with all the sorrow he’d learned from Nienna. “The One has been found.”

Aiwendil inhaled sharply, eyes flying wide. “What— Who— Where—”

“It was in the Misty Mountains, in the possession of a creature like and unlike a Goblin or a Hobbit. Belda took it to keep it from falling into the possession of darker creatures.”

Aiwendil’s brow was furrowed, one hand fluttering at his mouth as he thought. “Belda, Belda— who—” Abruptly, he blanched. “Gandalf, you don’t mean the Hobbit traveling with the Dwarves!”

Olórin frowned; why was he reacting so strongly? “Yes, I do.”

Pure, sheer horror filled the shorter wizard’s expression. “Gandalf… she’s a dragon.”

The words made no sense. Distantly, Olórin heard himself protest, “No, she’s not a drake, she can’t be.” The ponies would be terrified of her if she was.

Aiwendil shook his head impatiently. “No, not one of Melkor’s corruptions, she’s a true dragon. But in such direct conflict with Sauron’s power—”

“She told me it makes her skin crawl.”

Aiwendil’s brows shot up. “The Gift of Varda! She and Yavanna granted a rare few such to better combat Melkor’s evil!” He frowned again, hands fluttering anxiously around his face. “That will protect her from Sauron’s influence, yes, but he was never one to abide limits on his treachery. The others—if given any reason to turn on her—undoubtably will, and will take the One for themselves.”

Blood running cold, Olórin strode past Aiwendil, toward his horse.

“Where are you going!?” Aiwendil caught up within a few moments, trotting beside him.

“To Erebor!”

“Gandalf, you can’t!”

Aiwendil swung his staff into Olórin’s path; Olórin stopped as the shorter wizard had intended, and scowled darkly at him. “I started this. I sent Thorin Oakenshield to Erebor, I allowed Belda to join the Company, I allowed her to carry that Ring into Mirkwood, toward Erebor, toward Smaug— She came of age days ago— If the Company learns what she is, they will turn on her, and if she carries the One Ring into the mountain, if Sauron’s influence is joined by dragon-gold, it would have been better for her had she passed with her parents in the Fell Winter. Sauron’s evil will tear that mountain apart, from inside and out, and I will not allow that to happen to my goddaughter.” His breath shook as he finished, remembering the fauntling who’d so loved his stories, his fireworks, who’d taken up a play-sword as soon as she could grip it.

But Aiwendil stood his ground. “The power in Dol Guldur will only grow stronger if it is left, Gandalf. You have more power than I ever did. Convene the White Council to wipe the Necromancer from the face of Arda, and I will go to Erebor.”

His reasoning was sound, but Olórin still shook his head. “Saruman considers Sauron long gone and no longer a threat; he will never assist us without more proof.”

Genuine confusion softened Aiwendil’s frown. “But Saruman asked me to search for the Ring several years ago.”

Olórin blinked at him. “What?”

“Sixty… No, seventy years ago, or thereabouts. After the last time you called them to attack Dol Guldur, whenever that was. He asked me to ask the birds and beasts to help search the Gladden Fields.”

A sick feeling lodged in Olórin’s gut. “I showed him the wraith-blade just months ago, and he insisted that there was no need to worry over the One Ring.”

Aiwendil’s brows quirked with weak hope. “Perhaps because we’ve never found any trace of the Ring there?”

“But why would he hide his actions like this? To tell you one thing and me another entirely—”

Fresh horror overswept them both. “No, Gandalf—”

“If—”

“He can’t have fallen, he can’t—”

“But if he has—”

“But—”

“—then he cannot know of Belda.” Grimly, he held Aiwendil’s eyes. “You’re right. Go to Erebor, do what you can. With the Lady Galadriel and Lord Elrond in agreement, perhaps Saruman will relent. Whether he does or not, Dol Guldur must be cleansed. For Sauron to already have a seat of power when his Ring is found—”

“Time is short and stakes are high,” Aiwendil agreed. “For all our sakes, I pray you are wrong about Saruman.”

Chest tight, Olórin nodded. “So do I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... that kind of got away from me. I was just going to do a little drabble ('she's a dragon' 'oh noes!'), but then Gandalf and Radagast started talking and the next thing you know, I have to rejigger most of the entire rest of the story because now there's another wizard heading to Erebor.   
> Notes: 1) There's a link to Belda's braid embedded in the story, if you didn't notice it before. 2) I hope it came across, but Dwalin is definitely being a little bit petty, wanting the moral high ground. It isn't really that he wants to be the bigger man, it's that he wants to hold it over their heads in future that he was the bigger man. 3) I've read a lot of fics where Thorin is portrayed as the bad guy for not letting Kíli come with them, but I can't see it. Yes, Kíli was very disappointed and hurt and felt betrayed, but the man looked like he was on his deathbed! I wouldn't let him come, either! And according to the movie!timeline, Kíli had only gotten shot the day before and he already looked like he was about to keel over, so regardless of the fact that Thorin had no way to know that Kíli only had a couple days to live without Elvish intervention, he could see for himself that Kíli was deteriorating rapidly. Should he have called the Quest off on Kíli's account? ...Maybe. Depends. With the Orcs chasing them, they are in a little bit of a rush, so he might have decided that it was too risky to let everyone stay in Lake-Town for the foreseeable future, but in that case, they could have gone on to the Iron Hills and just waited for the next Durin's Day. Honestly, I'm on the fence about that. But still, I think he was right to insist Kíli stay where he was safe and he could get medicine. (Neither of those were actually true, but Thorin didn't know that.)  
> That ended up longer than expected.  
> 4) Does that answer some questions about Fíli's intelligence/sanity/horribleness? Although actually, the Ring is moving far away from Fíli now. It's the Company you should worry about. 5) 'San-naith' means 'perfect girl'; it's true, to Nori, but she's also still in 'reassure Belda constantly' mode. 6) Those of you who are *very* familiar with the movie will recognize the Gandalf&Radagast scene as one that happens before the Company even gets to Lake-Town, but since this is a combined book/movie timeline, I moved that up to now. Travel time in the movies is basically zilch, so I just added a little more travel time for Gandalf and Radagast to get all the way to the tombs. 7) I like Radagast. (And it's not just because he's the Doctor.) And given that he's Yavanna's representative on Middle-Earth, I couldn't just leave him as the class clown, could I? Besides, he's the resident dragon-expert, seeing as how he was around when dragons were created and he knows what happened to them. 8) Have you ever wondered what would have changed if Gandalf and Radagast had compared notes and realized Saruman was up to something? I bet now you will. (^u^)
> 
> ***IMPORTANT***  
> So, quick announcement, I decided to have the epilogue as a separate entry from the beginning, so I'll put that as number two in the series so you can just click through to it. 'Chapter fifty-seven' will not be a chapter, just a placeholder until I start updating again. (I always hate it when I'm into a story and then all of a sudden I click to the next chapter and it says something like 'I'M SORRY' or 'NOT AN UPDATE' at the top. It's just disappointing. So, here's forewarning.)  
> Anyway, I haven't finished the epilogue yet, so I'm not sure if it'll be up tomorrow or Monday.   
> À bientôt!


	57. just a placeholder, don't get excited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> not an update, sadly

this chapter will be deleted when i start updating again, so if anyone wants to leave a comment, please leave it on chapter fifty-six so that it doesn't get deleted, too. the epilogue will go up in a few minutes, so keep an eye out for that (or just click through to the next part of the series).

**Author's Note:**

> Updates six days a week (not Sundays).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fate Led Us to You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019603) by [FromTheBoundlessSea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromTheBoundlessSea/pseuds/FromTheBoundlessSea)




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